h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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This is a large kiosk-sized vending machine which can serve up hot meals which have been reconstituted from freeze-dried supplies held inside the machine.
Since freeze-dried food can preserve well for long periods of time - even decades - then this allows the vending machine to be placed in remote
out-of-the-way locations. An infrequently visited vending kiosk would be able to offer food service while going unmaintained or unreplenished for long periods of time. It could even be powered by solar & wind, and have satellite connectivity if need be, to make it a truly off-grid solution.
So imagine you find yourself near the North Pole, and you forgot to pack a lunch. All you need is a credit card or debit card, and you can walk up to this vending machine to order up a nice tasty hot meal.
Those tasty high-quality meals would have been prepared in advance in some factory, and then freeze-dried, since that method of preservation allows for preservation of very fancy meals including all the complex subtleties of flavor, all of which can be appropriately reconstituted with water. While it may not work equally well for all foods, the menu offering for this vending machine would be selected to cater to the strengths of the freeze-drying method.
Freeze-Dried Chili
https://www.youtube...watch?v=llubuZNkrUQ
[sanman, Sep 01 2024]
[link]
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No, that wasn't me - thanks for posting it, though. So it sounds like they're Scandinavian. I can see that such countries might have a lot of remote out-of-the-way places where such a food vending solution might come in handy. |
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But they seem to be thinking of using it in built-up areas, including at malls, etc. I think that the freeze-dried food approach would offer most advantage in the remote out-of-the-way locations where its great longevity can allow food to last a long time without going bad. If your vending machine is in some urban or built-up area, and is seeing very frequent use, then your rate of food turnover is high, and you don't really need freeze-dried food for that situation. |
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@ a1: okay, I missed that part when reading it. Still - drones sounds silly. How is the drone going to refill the vending machine? Or did he just mean drop food packets from sky? In which case, that would be rival model to the vending machine idea. |
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//So imagine you find yourself near the North Pole, and you forgot to pack a lunch. All you need is a credit card or debit card, and you can walk// for eleven days //up to this vending machine to order up a nice tasty hot meal// |
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There's a reason why the middle of knowwhere is called the middle of knowwear, because it is knowear near anything else including you. |
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Also, appropriate category choice for something that is in an unlikely inaccessible place |
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You're not a Scottish Laird looking for a way to monetise your bothies are you? |
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I know the Scots are reputed to be tight but geez! trying to make money out of some poor sod lost and starving on a mountainside, you don't think that's taking it a bit far? |
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A pay satellite phone so they can call a taxi (mountain recue) might be more helpful .. |
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Hmm. but you only get to charge once for that, don't put a phone in and do put a vending machine in and you get more than one fee out of them, they have to eat every day they're stuck there with no idea which direction to go for what passes for civilisation up there .. the longer they're there the more you make. |
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OK, I see your logic now, well done, carry on ;) |
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No, no, no ... You all have it all wrong. |
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The payment method needs to involve coins, but of a small value so that lots of them are required. And there should be another machine that will turn paper money into the required coinage. |
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Of course, that machine will periodically be out of order. So the meal vending machine will also accept paper checks, a sophisticated form of IOU. |
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And why is this idea in other:general? |
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and another machine that takes credit cards and hands out paper money but no coins .. for a small fee of course, a daisy chain of machines for each denomination that only hand out the next denomination down. |
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The food dispenser will only accept exact change, so separate machines for each coin denomination too. |
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IOU's have a seperate machine requiring you to let it take and keep a retina scan, thumb print, photo and a blood sample .. it dispenses a card with the amount of the IOU (less a small surcharge) on it that can be used in the note dispenser that takes credit cards. |
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@ a1: Tranny of the Penny? Penny's a fine name regardless of your gender re-affiliation. I forget what it's short for, tho |
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Okay, the North Pole part was a joke. But many countries have some lone highway/road going deep out to extremely remote parts that are otherwise inaccessible. So the vending machines could be located at suitable intervals along such routes. |
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Now that I think further - have you all heard of Geo-Caching? It's kind of a modern GPS-version of a treasure hunt, where each spot directs to the next spot, all of them usually in the middle of nowhere. Maybe these vending machines could be at each of the Geo-Caches spots. You "check in" to each spot by ordering some eats there, and get a little e-receipt for it. Then after you've completed the trek through all these waypoints, you get a coupon or something at the end. |
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"Congrats! You've reached the summit of Mount Everest! Now order a pizza, and you'll get a free slushie after you come back down!" |
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Now hiring: vending machine maintenance technician. Experience with sled dogs, tourniquets, spelunking, mountain climbing, anti-venom, extreme storm events, spacewalks, cross-country skiing, deep sea submersible piloting, and jungle survival strongly desired. No hazard pay available, but training for C++ and jackknife usage available as-needed. Apply today! |
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[Glances at [Rayfords] little list, Grins] |
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You know, I got a little fixated with the scottish highlands for this idea, ever heard of Cargo Cults? .. now I'm picturing a vending machine deep in the Amazon surrounded by offerings and trophies and worshiped as the god of gifts by the locale lost tribes, with the vending repairmen venerated as it's earthly servants. |
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The high priest being the one who first witnessed (having watched from behind a tree as a repairman got a coffee and a pizza before leaving) and then replicated the arcane art of offering it IOUs. |
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//An excellent way to deal with The Tyranny of The Penny// |
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The what now? [goes away and does a bit of reading] ah I see. |
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Is it a uniquely US cultural thing that you never carry coins with you or something? the root problem may be too many single adults and childless couples, you just need to have more kids so you can give them the coins as their pocket money, they'll carry and spend them. |
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//Please don't ask us to go through that again// |
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It's for the greater good, gotta get those pennies back into circulation, don't you care about your countries most pressing problem, where's your patriotic spirit, you'll be buried under heaps of unspent penies if you don't and then where will you be, crushed flat that's where, you have to save your country by having lots of unprotected sex, it's the only way, a dirty job but someone has to do it. |
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I find it a little amusing to find an ad absurdum grey goo problem that doesn't actually involve any AI. |
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One idly wonders whether the widespread sequestration of pennies in household coin jars throughout the nation has been sufficient to have had an impact on the availability and market price of zinc and copper. |
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One presumes in the light (a faint, inconsistent and somewhat erratic glow in this instance if you wanted to insist on honesty) of that thought that ultimately it would be a self correcting problem, eventually the price of zinc and copper can be expected to rise sufficiently that selling your pennies to scrap merchants becomes worthwhile and ultimately the coins become recycled into the system that way. |
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It would be a reverse tax of sorts, the coins build up in jars, the treasury mints more, rinse and repeat until zinc becomes scarce enough to industry that the intrinsic value is higher than the face value, people sell their coins to scrap merchants who recycle them and sell the zinc to the treasury who mint more. |
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Just make them put of whatever unobtanium Bitcoin is made out of... I think it's some kind of silicon wafer? |
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Inclusion of the Scottish Highlands would without question require hazard pay and hearing protection. We don't want our employees going deaf, blind, and insane all at once. |
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//We don't want our employees going deaf, blind, and insane all at once// |
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Agreed, it's much more fun to drag it out and inflict these on them one at a time, prolongs the enjoyment. |
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