Constants aren't...
Feb. 25th, 2008 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoySo, soda machines.
The problem with them is that frequently they don't work quite right. Too much syrup or not enough. Too much carbonation or not enough. So naturally I figured that these were adjustable, and that people were getting the settings wrong. But there had to be more to it than that, or there would be no reason to change it once you got it right; so I figured it must naturally go out of whack, and that's *why* it's adjustable, to compensate for this, and people weren't doing it, or weren't doing it right.
Well, I mentioned this one day at dinner, and Summer, who once worked at a fast food place, said, no, it doesn't work like that. It's not adjustable at all; the company wants it completely standardized, so you can't change it. But I point out how often they don't work, and you'd think they'd make it adjustable so you can compensate. And she suggests it's just a function of how much is in the machine at the time. And indeed, some time later I got a soda at a McDonalds somewhere with too much syrup, and indeed, they fixed it by just running the machine for a while.
But that seems like such a waste of soda. And if it really is just a function of how much is in the machine, you should be able to make an automatic adjuster for it. Although, seeing as how some machines seem to mess up especially frequently (in particular Pierce), some of this must be ordinary malfunctioning, so I suppose manual configuration would be better. I'm inclined to see this as part of the current "No, you don't own what you've bought" trend, but I'm sure it predates that, and probably just continues because nobody considers it worth fixing (or even sees it as a significant problem?). Still, it's very disappointing.
-Harry
The problem with them is that frequently they don't work quite right. Too much syrup or not enough. Too much carbonation or not enough. So naturally I figured that these were adjustable, and that people were getting the settings wrong. But there had to be more to it than that, or there would be no reason to change it once you got it right; so I figured it must naturally go out of whack, and that's *why* it's adjustable, to compensate for this, and people weren't doing it, or weren't doing it right.
Well, I mentioned this one day at dinner, and Summer, who once worked at a fast food place, said, no, it doesn't work like that. It's not adjustable at all; the company wants it completely standardized, so you can't change it. But I point out how often they don't work, and you'd think they'd make it adjustable so you can compensate. And she suggests it's just a function of how much is in the machine at the time. And indeed, some time later I got a soda at a McDonalds somewhere with too much syrup, and indeed, they fixed it by just running the machine for a while.
But that seems like such a waste of soda. And if it really is just a function of how much is in the machine, you should be able to make an automatic adjuster for it. Although, seeing as how some machines seem to mess up especially frequently (in particular Pierce), some of this must be ordinary malfunctioning, so I suppose manual configuration would be better. I'm inclined to see this as part of the current "No, you don't own what you've bought" trend, but I'm sure it predates that, and probably just continues because nobody considers it worth fixing (or even sees it as a significant problem?). Still, it's very disappointing.
-Harry
