caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Good morning, good people! I hope this Saturday finds you all in fine fettle!

I did some grocery pricing and shopping this week I thought worth passing along, since prices are going up on everything.

So, I read an article, no way I could find it now, that basically rated grocery store prices against the biggest grocery store chain in the country, which is Walmart. Using Walmart as the starting point, the article found 10 grocery stores that are actually cheaper than Walmart. Most were regional, but Costco, Aldis, and HEB stood out to me because they are accessible here.

We did sort of a test run on an HEB store this week, on the way home from the surgeon's office. The parking lot was almost full, but the store was so huge, you didn't notice shoppers, checked out with ease.

Vast inventory, not just cheap junk food. We got some sort of high end specialty products at a very reasonable price. We later shopped Walmart and noticed 2 things: The lowest priced products fill the shelves, while better products are gone. Just one example is Hunt's Ketchup. We don't consume it much, but we prefer the variety that contains no high fructose when we do. It is no longer available at our Walmart. Eat sugar or do without. Try to find a healthy breakfast cereal there. Go ahead. Try. All sugar coated.

But, the shock was noticing price tags are not paper and plastic. They are electronic. Our local Walmart was one of the last in the country to go to facial recognition pricing, but it is being installed there now. They haven't fully installed it, but they made a huge step forward from last Friday to Thursday of this week.

I think the following link is important and encourage you all to read it. This isn't our future. It is our present.

What is surveillance pricing and is it coming to a grocery store near you?

Surveillance pricing, or algorithmic personalized pricing, is a way of setting prices in which information about individual customers — from scraped social media activity to other identifying factors such as where they live or their spending habits — is used to generate prices. The concern about the practice is that it leads to different prices for different people, potentially exploiting their circumstances or need for a product.

Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to Friday Night Photos your once a week escape from the day to day insanity of the world we live in. Post any photos, memes, music or whatever else you find of interest that helps tune out the madness.

Last week the camera club went to the San Diego Botanical Garden for the annual spring orchid exhibit. Just like in years past there was a wide variety of orchids. Unlike in years past how the orchids were displayed and presented was rather mundane and a bit of a disappointment. Oh well. There's always next year. I really would have liked to have done some focus stacking as well as long exposure work but that requires the use of a tripod and do to the confined space of the exhibit tripods are not allowed.

Morning,

This is my last diary for a while - our regular host is returning next week. I am going to focus on farm work and a few projects to be completed this year.

It's almost summer, so ICE out!
Recently New Mexico joined 10 states in banning local and state agencies from joining agreements with the federal government which let the feds use local agencies. Basically local law enforcement agencies cannot be deputized to participate in the federal anti-immigration crap, like ICE.

Washington State, where I live, has already done some things to stop cooperation with ICE, including banning law enforcement from wearing face masks to hide their identities. The state may soon be passing a law to ban ICE from raiding schools, hospitals, day cares, etc without a judicial warrant or court order. New Jersey has done some of the same stuff, California has done it. I wonder what happens when more state do the same thing?

Ice OUT! image from the truthout.org article linked above.

Good morning everyone.
A fine Spring morning it is.
Just returned from the farm after 4 days of fixin' sh#t. A dry barrel hose bib broke off at the fitting 30" down and I had to dig it up and plug it until I can get a new one.