It’s also worth noting it was always supposed to land with the solar panels on its side, the issue is that they ended up pointing west (in the shade, not producing power) instead of to the east (towards the sun).

The fact that it still handled the asymmetrical thrust after the nozzle broke off one of its two engines to make it down in one piece, and only the orientation happened to be wrong, is still a great achievement.

If the hardware survives the chill (heaters not running from lack of power) it might still resume its mission when the sun changes position in the sky and the panels start getting light.

Do the stores not have free WiFi? I’ve never been in a Walmart, but all bigger stores here in Europe have WiFi.

This is the store policy making the experience suck.

Random checks at Kaufland (European supermarket chain) only require the employee to visually inspect your cart to see if you scanned everything and they only need to rescan like four items, to verify the employee actually took the time to check instead of just waving you through, so it’s all very fast.

Also, all employees can clear restricted items, so that’s fast too. My only gripe is that alcohol-free beer also triggers the age verification, but that’s a minor issue.

I love the hand scanners since thanks to them wonky scales and weight limits are a thing of the past. They really make checkout faster, as long as the store isn’t using them in a boneheaded way.

This might be the point, offering an opt-out no one will reasonably use while complying with regulations and still tracking most users, same as before.