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We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#161

All of this was unnecessary on the old ice cream machines. The downside was they had to be cleaned and sanitized every night and that meant you needed one more person on the closing team. It was all about saving labor costs.

Agreed, and with these new machines, they should have two of them (for several reasons). I worked there for a couple years in high school and summertime was just order after order of ice cream. The lost profit from the only machine being broken, or during it's downtime to chill the soft serve liquid after a refill, would pay back the investment in one summer, not to mention the customer service improvement. The ad ca…

Is there anything stopping a franchise from putting 2? I think it can’t be required because they have to meet some sort of smallest viable footprint.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#162
post #137

> Meanwhile, Canada is in the final stages of considering legislation that would fix the Canadian version of the DMCA, a bill called C-244 that is in its third reading in the Senate and expected to move before the end of the month. If Canada legalized circumventing technological protection measures for the purposes of repair, we might just have to head north to find the tools we need to do repairs. That's good news,…

The government of Canada is really missing out by not selling this bill as a reason to keep them in power

The odds are like 95%-5% against them, nothing will save them at this point.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#163

> Meanwhile, Canada is in the final stages of considering legislation that would fix the Canadian version of the DMCA, a bill called C-244 that is in its third reading in the Senate and expected to move before the end of the month. If Canada legalized circumventing technological protection measures for the purposes of repair, we might just have to head north to find the tools we need to do repairs. That's good news,…

What the hacker community should be lobbying for, everywhere is the complete repeal of these anticircumvention laws. DRM does not meaningfully protect against piracy, and most of the things it does protect against are otherwise-legal

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#164
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald’s pricing is complicated. You can still get cheap McDonald’s, but it requires giving them something in return (e.g. information about you).

Indeed, you can practically eat for free regularly at McD's if you use the app.

Ehh I've used the app for a while, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But you get some"good' prices.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a simple question. I know it’s illegal. Should regular people face consequences or not? The status quo is “no,” which is the first step to understanding why making consequences for circumventing DRM is a bitter compromise that is maybe the best option.

I'm not sure I follow. In the case where breaking DRM isn't illegal, but piracy still is illegal, what happens that you think is bad?

[deleted]

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#166
post #157

Buried deep down: > Video Game Accessibility: > Unfortunately, the exemption allowing circumvention of digital locks on video games for accessibility purposes (introduced in 2021) was not renewed. No petition for renewal was submitted, and as a result, individuals with disabilities who need alternative input methods to play video games are left out.

With games it seems like accessibility allowances would be dual-use, making it easier to cheat or make a bot.

The alternative of making such acts a crime seems like a grossly disproportionate response though.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a very one-sided take. Just look at all the artists (actors, painters, musicians, etc.) that are fighting tooth and nail against AI, and for good reason. While there are plenty of issues with copyright, I don't agree at all that just because the marginal cost of copying is 0 that if someone puts a ton of time and effort in creating a piece of work that I should just get to copy it for free.

That's not the argument though. The argument is that rent seeking as a business strategy is a deeply flawed and counter productive economic practice that ultimately limits our species' technological advancements and societal progress. The sooner we move past it, the better off we will all be. I agree that you should be able to create whatever you want and keep it 100%. So, clearly if someone were to steal your creati…

I don't like your redefinition of "rent seeking" at all. If I create an original piece of art, and publish it digitally, preventing other people from freely copying that art is not rent seeking - the thing I created didn't exist in any form before I created it, and I'm not trying to "extract rent" from you by preventing you from creating any of your own works.

Now, like I said previously, there are currently issues with copyright, and this can cross into rent seeking if I try to extract money from your own original works of art (see the family of Marvin Gaye), and there are issues with the length of copyright (i.e. I believe there is a fundamental difference in protecting the right of a creator while they're alive, vs. the rights of inheritors in perpetuity). But the whole concept of rent seeking is around using the power of government to extract money from others simply because you were there first, not around allowing unlimited copying of truly original works.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that you trust this person to clean the machine properly lest many people get food poisoning.

True, though it was not complicated. Just took a person about 45 minutes. That was to do the milkshake and the soft serve machine. Did it many, many times when I worked there.

Can I ask why it takes / took 45 minutes? That feels like a lot to clean one machine.

Was that all 'active' time or was there a 'put things in the dishwasher / autoclave and let it sterilize for X minutes?'

Were there a lot of separate parts to wash?

Now I'm curious :)

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#170
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly just being playful with a fun conspiracy theory. But, McDonald's and Middleby (current parent company of Taylor), are both publicly traded. Previous parent companies of Taylor were also publicly traded. It's not inconceivable - it wouldn't make sense to intentionally use a low quality product or intentionally cause service calls because of the decrease in revenue for McDonalds. But it would make sense to m…

> decrease in revenue for McDonalds. It’s not a major problem for McDonald’s Inc. though! They don’t sell McFlurries! They lease buildings and land, and they do collect a 4% royalty on sales. But the franchisee loses the other 96% of the revenue and has to pay 100% of the “authorized Taylor repair” bill. So it’s a much bigger problem for them, and a moral hazard for McDonald’s to be able to force the store owners to…

If they want to squeeze more money from franchisees why not jack up the rent or royalties? The Taylor conspiracy is far less efficient at getting revenue (at the very least, you need to pay the technician), and doesn't even seem to be working very well, as evidenced by the number of stores not bothering to repair their machines.
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