self-checkout-lane.md

Free startup idea to anyone who wants it: fix the self-checkout lane at grocery/discount stores.

Here's four things that can use drastic improvement:

1. Don't use bar codes to identify items. Grocery store shoppers drastically overestimate their own dexterity. Use RFID or something similar.
2. Don't make users scan their discount card and then my credit card. Once I scan them both once, assume that those two cards are tied together until you see a different card. Better yet: let me use my smartphone for both.
3. There should be absolutely zero lag or slowness. The fact that I can run a search on Google of the entire Internet in a tenth of the time it takes a self checkout machine to calculate change on a $20 bill is ridiculous.
4. Don't print receipts. Just e-mail them.