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Home retail chain Brookstone has filed for bankruptcy for the second time since 2014 after more than four decades of business. Barring 35 airport locations, all of its US outlets will be shut down.
For many, Brookstone's exit from the shopping scene may be as bittersweet as when The Sharper Image closed its doors in 2008, or SkyMall's demise seven years later. Its quirky assemblage of non-essentials -- 3D printing pens, Parrot AR Drones and gigantic Dance Dance Revolution remote controls -- offered customers a welcome escape from the throes of everyday life, and a chance to buy obscure gifts.
[...] Brookstone's CEO Piau Phang Foo said it was a 'difficult' decision to shut down mall stores, but is still keen to continue operations "with a smaller physical footprint". So Brookstone hasn't been completely extinguished from the retail map -- you'll just need to seek out its novelty products online from now on.
Source: Engadget
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @12:43AM (8 children)
It's a drop in the bucket.
We need to be thinking about a world where half of humanity may not even be capable of performing a job that a robot can't do.
A death spiral is all that capitalism has to offer us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @12:49AM (4 children)
> A death spiral is all that capitalism has to offer us.
I"ll be gone by then, already in my mid-60s. Gone without a worry, 'cause I had sense enough to not have kids, one of the reasons was that I guessed there was going to be a bad end game for the USA.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Sunday August 05 2018, @01:57AM (2 children)
I'm still young enough to have kids, since it's not hard for me to marry someone 10 years younger than myself. But if I do (doubtful), I'm not raising them in the US. What kind of loon would raise their kids in a country where you can be thrown in jail for "child neglect" because you let your kid roam around outside at any age less than 12 by himself?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:37AM
You really stirred up memories there... I was trying to remember if I had *ever* been restricted in movement in *any* way, excepting a disciplinary "grounding". I am 67 years old now. I flat can not remember any time I felt that I was at risk or "mistreated".
I only had a few simple rules... number one was to stay out of the road. I was shown lots of road kill by my parents as examples of what happens to things that do not pay the road due respect. The other one was to get home when it got dark. Do I consider that "neglect"? Hardly. I was learning all sorts of things. My parents told me as long as I did not do things that would get the police involved, things would be fine. If I got the police involved, there would be discipline from Dad as well. Lots of discipline.
I think the worst thing I did involved an old discarded washing machine in a vacant lot in a wooded area. All of us kids kept porn in that old machine, as it would keep it dry. And keep it out of sight of our parents. But I will never forget the aroma that permeated that entire area. Rotten spooge. We would gather around that old machine, peruse the porn, and do what came naturally, in groups, or alone. At least the neighborhood daughters weren't involved. For that, their dads should be eternally grateful that the bypass pressure relief system was in place.
If anything, instead of throwing parents in jail for "child neglect", I am wondering if throwing politicians into jail for "introducing attractive nuisances" into society that would harm the kids in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @10:06PM
Who got thrown into jail for that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @07:18PM
Sense enough not to have kids
I.E.
Still as virgin
(Score: 3, Touché) by Captival on Sunday August 05 2018, @01:37AM (2 children)
Yeah, I'm sure whatever shit system you like, which is almost always communism in this case, would be so much better, despite the fact that all the countries that people are risking their lives to sneak across the border into are capitalist.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @08:26AM (1 child)
> the fact that all the countries that people are risking their lives to sneak across the border into are capitalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#China [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @01:38PM
What they have in North Korea isn't what we think of capitalism. It's state capitalism, where businesses are owned by the government.