Paper-towel dispenser with a EULA prohibiting rival brands of paper

Fairly straight-forward engineering problem and solution, right there!

Yeah … good luck with that. Commercial Services don’t give a shit. They are incented to min-max all their contracts, with QOS being well down the list of requirements.

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Sure, it might not work.

However, services are also incented to get the contracts renewed. Stories of broken dispensers ignored for months does not help them do that. The department with the broken dispenser may not have much else to do in the way of recourse (depending on their organization), and it takes only a few minutes to complain.

Obviously this company is unaware that Blackhat and Defcon exist, in addition to many hackers who exist on the dark web. I’ve been to many a conference where people just look for this kind of stuff to offer a challenge, then they post how-to’s on the internet and/or dark web.

The problem is that the purchasers are disconnected from the users. Maintenance can complain till they’re blue in the face - they don’t take Commercial Services and Purchasing out for coffee, or give them branded pens and notebooks and squishy toys. They also aren’t Finance, who’re constantly screaming about lowering costs and creating efficiencies.

Meanwhile, Production can just wipe their hands on their trousers, or whatever. No one really cares about them.

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You see the solution, don’t you?

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I’m going to disavow any knowledge of this reply should a number of dispensers mysteriously become disabled.

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If your company has it in writing and they are refusing to repair the things, I’d claim breech of contract, and stop paying them until they fix/replace the dispensers. That ought to get someone’s attention.

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We’ve got one of those in our bathroom- unless it’s a contactless chip embedded in the plastic end of the roll, there’s nothing. the roll does have an asymmetrical mount; one side is an open cardboard tube, the other has a plastic cap which presumably is driving by a motor, or engages a sensor wheel so the unit knows when it rotates or something.

Looks like someone found my new bathroom wall art.

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Yes. Funny how you can’t even read the sign if you’re more than 50 feet away…

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A family member bought a Dixie (read: Koch Industries) brand cup dispenser for our kids’ bathroom. We proudly use it to dispense non-Koch-supporting paper cups. Although it’s darn hard to find decent ones that aren’t made by Koch…

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Reportedly, some of these dispensers have a form of paper DRM. They’re engineered to cause competing towels from dispensing correctly.

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Maybe off topic but I’m seeing a lot of far side strips being posted in comment threads and, well,

Since 1999 Larson has objected to his work being displayed on the internet, and has been sending takedown notices to owners of fan websites and users posting his cartoons. In a personal letter included with the requests, Larson claimed that his work is too personal and important to him to have others “take control of it”

I’ve always felt the real eternal September was when the internet stopped respecting Gary.

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When I was in high school I worked in a hospital. There were (I think) four different models of paper towel dispenser - I think they were all the same brand. The paper towels all looked essentially the same, but they weren’t. Each model dispenser had a corresponding SKU of paper towel, and putting the wrong paper in a dispenser meant that it didn’t come out as easily as the correct paper. I never knew what the rationale behind this variation was or is. It doesn’t seem to have been to discourage use of competing paper, because it was true across one company’s line.

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Ok, this is silly. Tork does not sell these dispensers, they provide them on loan for free with a paper contract. You want to use other paper? Get the dispensers from them. Tork sends out installers, will repair them, and if they start to look scuzzy, will replace them. You sign a contract with them that you will not use other people’s paper in their dispensers. No penalty to stop using them, they just want 39 days to arrange a pick up of their equipment. Not a eula, but a limitatiin of what you can do with their equipment. Please tell me how this is evil. The coffee machine in my restaurant is the same way. Machine is free on loan. They maintain it., But I agree only to get coffee of them. In both cases the price and service is right. (I use tor eqipment too)

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IMO, the eternal september was over on April 30, 1995. Not that it matters.

2019-06-20SnufkinBreakRules

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Well that certainly offers a different perspective on the issue.

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