I probably am the last person to know this, but one of the local fast food places has this monstrosity
Sorry for the glare… It’s a single self serve device that has a touch screen that lets you choose from 106! different coca cola products.
My first two questions were…
How can this be made idiot proof so the not too bright people who work in these places wouldn’t confuse root beer with no caffeine diet coke?
With a single nozzle how can it avoid syrup cross contamination? (that has already proven to be an issue)
Down the road, if there is a “sugary drink” tax, who is going to be looking over my shoulder if I pay for a diet coke and “steal” an untaxed real coke (with HFCS)?
Simple … they will just invent “nano” RFID chips that are carried in the soft drink — that way they can scan our bodies, read how many “sugar” RFID’s we have consumed, and deduct the tax from our accounts (as well as add it to our medical records).
😉
I’m thinking first they’ll try the cold medicine solution. Put the sugar-like drinks in cans only and put them behind the counter.
A few places around here started playing “hide the salt packets” and force people to ask for them (to protect the children, of course). I’m enough of an annoyance that they stopped playing that game.
Back a year ago when my niece graduated from medical school, my brother (+wife), and sister went to a restaurant near the University in New York City. I made a big point of leaning to my sister and asking her to pass the contraband – she immediately got the joke and passed me the salt shaker. My brother and wife who are both “medical” people were alarmed, then confused, then appalled 🙂 They didn’t enjoy their stay in New York City – I warned them they probably didn’t want to stay in those cheeaper hotels down by the Port Authority Bus Terminal, but they knew better than me 🙂
Now was that a lucky guess, intuition or you knew? 🙂
http://www.rfidnews.org/2009/08/18/coca-cola-uses-rfid-to-revolutionize-beverage-dispensers
The dispenser is RFID enabled to track the cartridges (wouldn’t want people refilling cartridges and reusing them!)… The machine also reports home so the people in Atlanta can watch in real time what the World is drinking (except in Libya).
I was anticipating the next step after current RFID — somehow they have to figure out how to track our every move and action to “protect us from terrorism”, “prevent disease”, and “collect unpaid taxes” etc (nanny state ad nauseam).
Big brother never had it so good.
So all we need now is a government issued “allowed to drink sugary sodas” RFID tag to permit us access to sugary like substances only to authorized individuals, and the plan is complete! The Medical Usage Review panel can see in real time if we’ve exceeded our daily allowance of unhealthy calories and switch the machine to slip us a diet soda without our knowing it.
Don’t forget a “sugar credit” system similar to “carbon credits” that will allow you to buy/trade credits. I wonder if Al Gore, ADM and/or Monsanto have already created a “bank of sugar credit exchange” in anticipation of this new cash cow?
Per usual Federal requirements there were will “exceptions” for those who are Federal employees, members of the correct Union, donors to the correct Party, and/or members an historically under-sugared population.
They can do the same type of thing with salt. Man, the possibilities are endless. As Mel Brooks said in “History of the World, Part 1” (after having his way with the peasants)– “It’s good to be the King!”
The only thing I ever heard PETA say which I reacted to with “Yes, that’s right” was the statement – look at how we treat animals today, and that’s how humans will be treated in 20 years.
What we are describing is the “technology” behind feeding cattle. The bovine ambles up to the feed trough, the ear tag is read, the computer checks to compare the genetic profile of the animal to its feed consumption, an infared sensor measures its nose temperature to see if it has a fever, and then dispenses only the correct amount and type of feed for maximum efficiency.
You can never be too efficient.
As a bonus, no more unionized Coca Cola truck drivers double parked in traffic wheeling around a dolly of syrup bags – the thing automatically places orders for the replacements it needs, and the UPS guy shows up the next day and delivers them – and probably picks up the empty to return to be refilled at the factory. Coca Cola is marketing this as being “green” technology, since it gets rid of the plastic waste.
And you thought green jobs were just a myth! (after you subtract out all the unemployed truck route drivers, that is…)
I’m old enough to remember working in restaurants where the Coke or Pepsi rep came in regularly to check our drink fountains and make sure they were clean and dispensing properly. In fact, at one place that I worked the rep didn’t even want us to replace the syrup canisters when they were empty!
Coke and Pepsi “greened” those jobs a long time ago and decided to let the restaurants monitor the syrup/carbonation mix. In my opinion fountain drinks at restaurants and gas stations have been CRAP every since. It is a rare event that I purchase a fountain drink where the mix is properly calibrated.
Just put me down as a cranky old geezer. Maybe I will attach 10,000 balloons to my house, float away, and say the hell with all of it 🙂
I also worked at one of those places – the district manager had the little allen wrench to tweak the flow rate of the mix and the measuring device to make sure the syrup to water ratio was correct (or not).
I think I may have once or twice hooked up the in and output hoses backwards – hence my knowledge of syrup cross contamination!
… and in a completely unrelated development, the Feds just arrested an Amish Dairy Farmer in a sting operation. His crime? Distributing raw milk to consenting adults.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/28/feds-sting-amish-farmer-selling-raw-milk-locally/
“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed.”
Got that ladies and babies? No more breast-feeding…
Here are some of the answers to my questions:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1325599149
This thing was rolled out in test markets in 2009 – I vaguely remember reading about it at the time. I guess it showing up in my part of the world suggests it is now in wide distribution.
The machine operates using cartridges similar to your inkjet printer, and using similar technology to precisely measure the “flavoring”. I would assume it has a “caffeine” cartridge, a “cherry” cartridge and a HFCS cartridge, and an artificial sweetener cartridge, so it can do the work of the factory of mixing the components at the point of sale. The various pieces are metered out a tiny bit at a time and mixed as the drink is dispensed.
More details:
http://fastfood.ocregister.com/2009/07/21/video-coca-cola-freestyle-demo-how-it-works/29053/
I chuckled at the reporter asking if they intended to make it work with a cane sugar version, since it is about choice after all. They got a one one word answer.
What happens if I choose the healthiest ‘flavor’ and walk away? Ice.
First offense, you are put on the double secret watch list.
Second offense, you are detained and questioned for falsifying medical and tax records (and possibly being a terrorist).
😉