It took this long to establish a Right to Repair for Ice Cream Machines... So, where shall we set the over:under for number of years til regain a Right to Repair our own cars?
We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
171–180 of 326 posts
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#172Buried 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.
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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#173> 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,…
> It's nice when you hear about our government doing something good for once.
Critically, what the government is doing here is reducing its own authority with regard to information, the internet, and ultimately at some level, thought. Sharing methods for basic home and business improvements, including repairs of machinery, is one of the most fundamental functions of society.
It's rare (but of course not unheard of by any stretch) that the governments of the largest nation states do anything _proactive_ that is helpful to society, but in many cases when they choose to reduce their own capabilities (even for the wrong reasons), it seems more forward-looking.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Wendy's frosty machine doesn't have the same automatic cleaning cycle and pasteurization feature that the McDonald's ice cream machine has. Thus Wendy's employees need to tear the machine down and clean it by hand, a long and tedious process. The whole reason McDonald's wanted this machine was to reduce training costs and labour. However, the machine does need to be operated correctly or it simply shuts down.
As someone who has cleaned a soft serve machine, its not really long or tedious.
Maybe for you but when closing a Wendys down for the night you need to begin the teardown process quite a bit before official closing time. You need to wait for the machine to allow the remaining frosty mix to melt, dump the remainder into a metal bucket (to use for tomorrow). Then you have to flush water through the machine to be able to disassemble it, then the machine needs to be loaded with a sanitizing solution (along with all the parts which are placed in the hopper).
Finally you gotta re-do all of this the following morning! Sure its not like taking apart an iPhone but its not a 5 second job either.
The worst part? This damn machine can only produce one flavor of frosty at a time! The mcdonalds machine avoids all of this, produces 3-4 flavors of milkshakes from one unit and handles soft serve ice cream!
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#175Buried 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.
That's only really an issue for specific games.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
then why is it that its only the ice cream machines that have problems not not things like the soda fountain any other food production tool?
In general, acidic or basic foods are very safe from bacterial contamination standpoint. Soda is very acidic (due to all that dissolved carbon dioxide). It's not that it doesn't get bacteria (they live everywhere), but it's unlikely to get pathogenic bacteria. This makes sense, a highly acidic environment is very different from a human body. That's why foods such as milk, ice cream, potato or egg salad, are the most…
In fact strong acids and bases are so safe they also kill the bacteria in the human body, along with the host.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#177Does anyone else thinks this is actually a great incidental marketing campaign for McDonald's? Not only the free reach but also tons of people discussing the "problems" with a big co and how to "fix" them as they are an essential part of society, and this case ice-creams. Sure we focus on the big brain things like copyright, business malpractice and MBA lore but with it comes McDonald's embedded. I know this might so…
I totally agree.
Who cares if the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? It's shit ice cream. Most of you probably live near a better local ice cream/soft serve/custard joint. Heck, most of you probably live near a better corporate chain ice cream joint that probably also serves better food than McDonald's: Dairy Queen, In-N-Out, Shake Shack, Culver's, etc.
If McDonald's didn't have breakfast or coffee the whole chain might be out of business or at tiny fraction of its current size by now.
The McDonald's ice cream machine monopoly only negatively affects millionaire McDonald's franchise owners who deserve to be abused by the franchise for being so un-innovative that they resort to purchasing/renting access to a successful business model. Talk about the most opposite-of-meritocracy business venture imaginable!
Imagine if you had a half a million dollars in freely available non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own business model to try. What does that say about you as an entrepreneur/trust fund kid?
Of course, ice cream is damn easy to make at home, can be made in large batches and kept frozen forever, and it'll come out far better than any fast food ice cream I know of.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#178Note this part: > This time, the FTC and DOJ even weighed in to support our petition. See also: https://www.ifixit.com/News/92942/the-ftc-and-doj-call-for-i... Elections matter.
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I can imagine it, because broken ice cream machines only affect millionaire McDonald's franchise owners negatively.
Also the leader of the Republican Party happens to be a loyal McDonald's customer. I mean, the guy bought the Clemson Tigers McDonald's instead of using the White House's in-house catering.
Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
Before we invented copying machines there was no concept of copyright. It is a recent invention, and not how human culture evolved. And it was ok up until the internet was invented, but people want to return from passive consumption to interactive. We now prefer games, social networks and search to books, radio and TV. AI is just the latest stage in this move away from passivity.
Why should society not have the right for its traditional interactive way of exchanging culture? Extending the duration of copyright was a perverse move, and now blocking the right to repair is another perverse move. DMCA put all publishers at the whim of agencies spamming takedowns with impunity even for no reason at all. Artists more recently would like to copyright abstractions to block generative AI from reusing their ideas.
People need their traditional ways back. We started open source, made Wikipedia, we now have open scientific publication, teachers share prep materials. Clearly there is a sign that copyright is not essential for society. Copyleft or sharing is more important.