Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you so. Over the last couple of years, I've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about the concept of right to repair.
Speaker 1: In fact, I've talked about it this week simply, but
Speaker 1: the right to repair is all about giving individuals the
Speaker 1: right to perform their own maintenance and repair on the
Speaker 1: products that they buy, rather than being forced to go
Speaker 1: through some official channel from the manufacturer itself. So a
Speaker 1: lot of hardware companies will lock down their products in
Speaker 1: ways that make it difficult or sometimes even impossible for
Speaker 1: the average person or independent repair shop to do maintenance
Speaker 1: or repair on their products. A company could use stuff
Speaker 1: like dietary fasteners, for example, that require specialized tools to
Speaker 1: remove them, or the company might not provide any useful
Speaker 1: documentation on how their technology works or what to do
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong. And if you don't know how
Speaker 1: something works, you really don't have a way to fix
Speaker 1: it when it's not working. There are lots of ways
Speaker 1: that a company might lock down a product. It's not
Speaker 1: unusual in the world of vehicles, from automobiles to heavy
Speaker 1: farm equipment, for a company to tie everything into a
Speaker 1: computer system, and that computer system is more or less
Speaker 1: inaccessible unless you have the right equipment and knowledge to
Speaker 1: tap into it. So these are all examples of almost
Speaker 1: turning products into black boxes. And meanwhile you have people
Speaker 1: who say, I want to be able to fix this
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong and not have to bring it
Speaker 1: all the way back to some official store. Now, a
Speaker 1: lot of companies will actually tell you the reason that
Speaker 1: they even do this, that they do all this locking
Speaker 1: away stuff is for your own good. Take Apple for example. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: Apple had argued that locking down its systems really keeps
Speaker 1: customers safe because Apple can guarantee a high level of service.
Speaker 1: And if just any Yahoo out there could open up
Speaker 1: an iPhone and make changes, then who knows what evil
Speaker 1: doers would get up to. Maybe you would think that
Speaker 1: you're taking your phone to get your battery swapped out,
Speaker 1: but what's really happening is Joe Schmo of Joe Schmo's
Speaker 1: iPhone and VCR repair is actually installing like geo trackers
Speaker 1: on your device or something. Other companies like e bike companies,
Speaker 1: I talked about this this week. They have argued that
Speaker 1: any repairs that are done outside the company's own ecosystem
Speaker 1: could lead to dangerous situations like a fire. And it's
Speaker 1: true that some electric vehicles, you know, stuff like hoverboards
Speaker 1: and even some e bikes have been involved in some fires,
Speaker 1: some of them really catastrophic ones. But these fires typically
Speaker 1: result from poor manufacturing processes and damage to batteries. And
Speaker 1: in this case, you talk about a battery where you've
Speaker 1: got a flaw somewhere that creates a short circuit inside
Speaker 1: the battery itself. It is a pathway through which the
Speaker 1: electrochemical system that can generate electricity has a shortcut. It
Speaker 1: bypasses everything else. This leads to the battery overheating very
Speaker 1: quickly and in some cases exploding into flame. But again
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily because some e bike owner decided they
Speaker 1: were going to replace a battery on their own. More
Speaker 1: often than not, it happens because there's a flaw in
Speaker 1: the actual manufacturing process and the owner had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it whatsoever. In fact, in yesterday's news episode,
Speaker 1: I talked about how a representative for the lobbying organization
Speaker 1: called People for Bikes, which by the way, represents the
Speaker 1: bike industry. It doesn't represent the bicyclist community anyway. This
Speaker 1: representative couldn't give evidence of this being a situation at all. Instead,
Speaker 1: this person said the evidence was quote unquote anecdotal. Does
Speaker 1: this mean that it would be impossible for someone to
Speaker 1: accidentally cause a fire while trying to repair their own
Speaker 1: e bike? No, it would be possible, but it isn't
Speaker 1: something that's actually been documented. So the reason for the
Speaker 1: policy is based upon something that hasn't been proven to
Speaker 1: actually happen. You know, it's like one of those protective measures,
Speaker 1: and you're saying, but if the thing that it's protecting
Speaker 1: against hasn't happened, how is it protecting anyone other than
Speaker 1: your own interests? Anyway. A big reason why companies actually
Speaker 1: do this is that it makes them a lot more money.
Speaker 1: A company like Apple, by controlling the entire ecosystem, can
Speaker 1: make money throughout the whole life cycle of your Apple device.
Speaker 1: So let's say it's an iPhone. Well, first, Apple gets
Speaker 1: money when you buy your eye phone. They get money
Speaker 1: if you pay for Apple Care. They also make money
Speaker 1: if you don't have Apple Care, and then you have
Speaker 1: to bring the phone into an Apple store for repairs,
Speaker 1: or they make money by granting a license to repair
Speaker 1: shops that pay for the privilege of being able to
Speaker 1: work on Apple devices. By controlling the big picture, Apple
Speaker 1: can generate revenue the whole time. There's every touch point
Speaker 1: is a place where Apple makes money. So recently, Apple
Speaker 1: has actually backed off of this a little bit. The
Speaker 1: company has started to offer a self service repair kit,
Speaker 1: which includes some of the tools needed to access the
Speaker 1: innerds of stuff like iPhones, and you can purchase a kit,
Speaker 1: or you can rent one for a week. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're someone who doesn't need to own one of
Speaker 1: these kits, you could just rent it for a week
Speaker 1: for like fifty bucks and then use it to do
Speaker 1: your own repairs. You can also purchase replacement parts from
Speaker 1: Apple and repair manuals Apples providing those as well. It's
Speaker 1: not exactly cheap, and if you're just working on your
Speaker 1: own device, you might eventually come to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: it would actually be less hassle and less expensive to
Speaker 1: bring your device into Apple anyway. But if you're an
Speaker 1: independent repair shop owner, the program could make a lot
Speaker 1: of financial sense anyway. The whole reason that I'm bringing
Speaker 1: this up again is to talk about something that has
Speaker 1: been a long standing issue, one that has led to
Speaker 1: endless jokes and posts and memes and videos of people
Speaker 1: really frustrated as they go through drive through I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the much maligned ice cream machines at the fast
Speaker 1: food chain McDonald's. So the company I fix It, which
Speaker 1: I love, by the way, I fix It, is a
Speaker 1: phenomenal resource. If you want to learn how stuff works,
Speaker 1: check out I fix it because they have these detailed
Speaker 1: repair sections on all these different devices and as a result,
Speaker 1: you will learn how those devices work. You have to again,
Speaker 1: if you want to be able to fix something, you
Speaker 1: gotta know how it works in the first place. It
Speaker 1: does get very technical, but it is incredibly detailed. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I fix It has been documenting how to repair all
Speaker 1: types of technology for years, and they recently did a
Speaker 1: piece on the ice cream machines at McDonald's and it's
Speaker 1: actually well worth checking out their YouTube video on the subject.
Speaker 1: It is really fantastic. It's entertaining and informative, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, like just like ten minutes long. It's not
Speaker 1: long at all, so it's really worth checking out. So
Speaker 1: some of the stuff I'm going to talk about will
Speaker 1: overlap what they cover in that video, but I'm also
Speaker 1: looking at some other things as well. Now, the issue
Speaker 1: here is that there's this essentially a perception more but
Speaker 1: really based in reality, that the ice cream machines at
Speaker 1: McDonald's are quote unquote always broken. So I fix it
Speaker 1: found that this perception has at least some merit to it,
Speaker 1: because at any given time, according to various tools online,
Speaker 1: around a third of McDonald's franchises have an ice cream
Speaker 1: machine that's not currently working, which almost makes it sound
Speaker 1: like it's a conspiracy. So what's going on here? Well,
Speaker 1: to answer that, we have to learn a little bit
Speaker 1: about the company that provides those ice cream machines. Once
Speaker 1: upon a time, it was called the Tailor Freezer Corporation.
Speaker 1: Now it's just known as the Tailor Company. And way
Speaker 1: back in nineteen twenty six, a man named Charles Taylor,
Speaker 1: whom the company describes as a third generation ice cream maker,
Speaker 1: wanted to create a means of making ice cream without
Speaker 1: having to hand crank a device, and to guarantee better
Speaker 1: consistency between ice cream batches. I guess it would benefit
Speaker 1: us to first understand how ice cream actually you know
Speaker 1: happens which involves some physics and some chemistry. So essentially,
Speaker 1: you need to take your ice cream mixture, which typically
Speaker 1: includes ingredients like sugar, milk, and fat, and then any
Speaker 1: other flavorings that you want, and you might be using
Speaker 1: something like heavy cream to provide the fat, and you
Speaker 1: want to freeze this mixture. But the structure of this liquid,
Speaker 1: you know, in order to get to crystallize, it actually
Speaker 1: requires a lower freezing point than what we get using
Speaker 1: just ice, and that presents a challenge. How do you
Speaker 1: get a mixture to a cold enough temperature to freeze,
Speaker 1: particularly if you want to make ice cream during the
Speaker 1: dog days of summer, how do you get that mixture
Speaker 1: colder than the temperature of ice. If you've ever used
Speaker 1: an old fashioned ice cream churn, you know, the hand
Speaker 1: cranked kind, you know that you pack the perimeter of
Speaker 1: the churn like there's a gap inside the churn between
Speaker 1: the outer wall and the ice cream chamber, right, and
Speaker 1: you pack that with a mixture of ice and salt.
Speaker 1: Why do you use salt? What does the salt do well?
Speaker 1: Salt lowers the freezing point for water if you're talking
Speaker 1: about pure water, that of course freezes at zero degrees
Speaker 1: celsius or thirty two degrees fahrenheit. When you introduce salt
Speaker 1: to water, it will require a lower temperature for that
Speaker 1: water to freeze. How much lower depends upon the concentration
Speaker 1: of salt. So this is also why people will salt
Speaker 1: roads and walkways either before or during a snow or
Speaker 1: ice storm. It lowers the freezing point. That means the
Speaker 1: ice will actually start to melt at a lower temperature
Speaker 1: than it normally would. So if you're on a winter day,
Speaker 1: maybe the high temperature is going to be like twenty
Speaker 1: eight degrees well fahrenheit. Twenty eight degrees fahrenheit is still
Speaker 1: below the freezing point for water, right, and so typically
Speaker 1: the frozen roads would remain frozen. But if you put
Speaker 1: salt on those roads, it will lower the freezing point
Speaker 1: of water, and maybe you get it down so that
Speaker 1: the freezing point of water would be twenty degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: And since you're high at twenty eight, it means the
Speaker 1: ice will actually start to melt. So that's why we
Speaker 1: add salt to roads in the way times. On a
Speaker 1: molecular level, what's going on is that the salt is
Speaker 1: interfering with the water ability to form the crystalline structure
Speaker 1: of ice. So that means the freezing point has to
Speaker 1: go down in order to get a temperature low enough
Speaker 1: to overcome salt inhibiting the water in this way, and again,
Speaker 1: the concentration of salt will determine exactly how low you
Speaker 1: have to get before the water will freeze. But what
Speaker 1: does that mean for our ice cream? Well, let's imagine
Speaker 1: the ice cream maker is an enclosed thermal system. The
Speaker 1: ice and salt mixture is at a lower temperature than
Speaker 1: the ice cream mixture, right Like, let's say we've poured
Speaker 1: the ice cream mixture in, it's more or less at
Speaker 1: room temperature, and the surrounding ice and salt mixture is
Speaker 1: closer to the freezing point for water, so it's closer
Speaker 1: to zero degrees celsius. We know that the laws of
Speaker 1: thermo dynamic state that if you have stuff that is
Speaker 1: of different energy levels, the system will tend toward an equilibrium.
Speaker 1: And that we know that energy has to flow from
Speaker 1: high concentrations to low concentrations. It can't go the other way.
Speaker 1: Energy can't go from low to high. It has to
Speaker 1: go from high to low. So our ice mixture begins
Speaker 1: to melt, so the heat from our ice cream mixture
Speaker 1: starts to transfer to the outer part of the ice
Speaker 1: cream chamber. That heat transfers to the ice and salt mixture,
Speaker 1: and so the ice is absorbing heat and thus the
Speaker 1: temperature of the ice cream mixture is going down. So
Speaker 1: it then is going to need to get cold enough
Speaker 1: to freeze that ice cream mixture. If we were just
Speaker 1: using ice, we wouldn't get there because the temperature we
Speaker 1: would be at would be essentially zero degrees celsius or
Speaker 1: thirty two degrees fahrenheit. It wouldn't be cold enough to
Speaker 1: get to the temperature that would be required to turn
Speaker 1: the ice cream mixture into actual ice cream. But the
Speaker 1: salt we've added has lowered the freezing point for the
Speaker 1: ice ice in the churn. This is important. Let's think
Speaker 1: about the different phases of water in terms of energy, right.
Speaker 1: So ice is water with its low energy point at
Speaker 1: this stage. In this phase, water molecules are in that
Speaker 1: crystalline structure. They pretty much stop moving, so they are
Speaker 1: very low energy. So we can then think of liquid
Speaker 1: water as water that has a medium energy phase. In
Speaker 1: this phase, the water molecules can move around, and they do,
Speaker 1: and water will also take the shape of whatever container
Speaker 1: it's in, So stuff is happening when it's in liquid form.
Speaker 1: If we were to go even warmer and increase the
Speaker 1: energy more, then we would have the water evaporate into gas,
Speaker 1: and then it would be at a very high energy phase.
Speaker 1: Those molecules would be zipping around all over the place.
Speaker 1: But anyway, our ice, the solid water starts to melt,
Speaker 1: but the salt we've added has lowered that freezing point
Speaker 1: to below zero celsius or thirty two fahrenheit. Meanwhile, we
Speaker 1: have this salty water that's inside the churn, and that
Speaker 1: salty water is going to continue to transfer energy to
Speaker 1: the ice because remember the liquid water has a higher
Speaker 1: energy than the solid water does than the ice does,
Speaker 1: So the decreased freezing point means that the liquid water
Speaker 1: will actually keep giving energy to the ice even below
Speaker 1: the normal point for freezing, because you know, as it's
Speaker 1: transferring heat to the ice, the liquid water's temperature continues
Speaker 1: to drop, and now the freezing point is lower, so
Speaker 1: it remains freezing longer and you end up getting this salty,
Speaker 1: icy slurry inside the churn that gets to a much
Speaker 1: lower temperature than the freezing point for water, and thus
Speaker 1: you can have a low enough temperature where the ice
Speaker 1: cream mixture inside the chamber will reach a temperature low
Speaker 1: enough to start to crystallize and become ice cream. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool that it works this way just by
Speaker 1: using salt and ice. And I gotta tell you, like,
Speaker 1: it's been so long since I've had basic physics that
Speaker 1: it took me a while to really get my mind
Speaker 1: wrapped around this, because it seems like it seems almost
Speaker 1: counterintuitive in some ways, but as you think about it,
Speaker 1: you start to realize, oh, it makes sense. You're just
Speaker 1: thinking about the wrong way, or at least for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting you thought of it that way, but
Speaker 1: for me, it was like there was a little block there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: these days, a lot of ice cream makers use other
Speaker 1: stuff to chill the mixture down low enough for it
Speaker 1: to freeze. And in fact, if you're looking at industrial ones,
Speaker 1: you're typically looking at a device that uses condensers and
Speaker 1: refrigerant to build in a sort of heat exchanger. It's
Speaker 1: the same as you would find in a refrigerator or
Speaker 1: an air conditioner. And I've talked about this process a
Speaker 1: lot too, but we will cover that a little bit
Speaker 1: when we come back from this quick break. Okay, before
Speaker 1: the break, I mentioned a heat exchanger, the kind of
Speaker 1: you would find in a refrigerator or you know, like
Speaker 1: an industrial freezer, that kind of stuff, including ice cream machines,
Speaker 1: and how do these work well. They also take advantage
Speaker 1: of the physics of different phases of a material, in
Speaker 1: this case a refrigerant, a liquid, or a liquid that
Speaker 1: also in some parts of the system is a gas.
Speaker 1: So when a liquid evaporates, that liquid absorbs heat. This
Speaker 1: is why when you have water on your skin and
Speaker 1: it starts to evaporate off your skin, it feels cool
Speaker 1: because the water is absorbing heat from your body as
Speaker 1: part of that evaporation process. When water condenses, then it
Speaker 1: releases heat. So when a gas condenses into a liquid,
Speaker 1: it is releasing heat. When it's a liquid that it's
Speaker 1: a vaporing into a gas, it absorbs heat. So if
Speaker 1: you create a system in which you have a refrigerant
Speaker 1: running through a tube and it evaporates in parts of
Speaker 1: that system, it will absorb heat in that part, and
Speaker 1: if it condenses in another part of the system, it
Speaker 1: will release heat in that part. You can actually transfer
Speaker 1: heat from one part into the outside part. And that's
Speaker 1: how refrigerators and freezers work. Right. You've got essentially some piping,
Speaker 1: a tube, if you will, that runs through a freezer,
Speaker 1: and in this process, the refrigerant in that tube is
Speaker 1: boiling off into a gas and as such is absorbing
Speaker 1: heat through the entire pathway that's inside the freezer. It
Speaker 1: then passes through a condenser. The condenser's job is to
Speaker 1: pressurize this very now warm gas, and it becomes even
Speaker 1: hotter liquid because you've increased the pressure, you've increased the
Speaker 1: boiling point of this gas. It now has condensed into
Speaker 1: a liquid. The liquid you allow to pass through condenser
Speaker 1: coils and as it does so, it releases heat the
Speaker 1: external environment and then eventually it reaches an expansion valve.
Speaker 1: This valve only works in one direction. It allows the
Speaker 1: high pressure liquid to go through this expansion valve and
Speaker 1: then drop into an area of much lower pressure, at
Speaker 1: which point the liquid boils off and thus begins to
Speaker 1: absorb heat. So as it goes through the expansion valve,
Speaker 1: it's moving into the freezer again, right, that's where it's
Speaker 1: pulling the heat from the freezer into this boiled off
Speaker 1: refrigerant and it goes through the system again. So really
Speaker 1: you can think of the expansion valve and the condenser
Speaker 1: as creating two different sections of this system. In one
Speaker 1: section you have low pressure and that's where the refrigerant
Speaker 1: can absorb heat, and then the other section you have
Speaker 1: high pressure and that's where the refrigerant condenses and releases
Speaker 1: heat to the outside environment. So a lot of industrial
Speaker 1: modern ice cream machines use this method, and again it's
Speaker 1: pretty simple really when you get down to it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you do have a motor that you have to deal
Speaker 1: with with the condenser, right like, that's an actual motorized
Speaker 1: part of the system. But otherwise you're using valves and
Speaker 1: pipes to just take advantage of physics in order to
Speaker 1: make a section very cold and to transfer that heat
Speaker 1: to the outside again, same way the air conditioners work.
Speaker 1: So pretty cool anyway, This is just one component obviously,
Speaker 1: of ice cream machines, even the one we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with the ice and rock salt. Cooling it down
Speaker 1: is just one part of it. Another part of it
Speaker 1: is churning the ice cream. When you churn ice cream,
Speaker 1: you're introducing air into the mixture, into the fat, the milk,
Speaker 1: and the sugar and whatever else may be in it.
Speaker 1: This makes the ice cream fluffier. You wouldn't want just
Speaker 1: a solid block of sweetened cream. It would be very
Speaker 1: difficult to eat. You want it to have that consistency
Speaker 1: where it's kind of cloudlike and fluffy. Churning more and
Speaker 1: more air into this mixture will make it softer and softer.
Speaker 1: So if you are able to do this enough, you
Speaker 1: can make it soft enough so that you can treat
Speaker 1: the ice cream as if it's a semi liquid. You know,
Speaker 1: you can use you know, pumps and stuff, or even
Speaker 1: just gravity to allow it to flow through pipes or
Speaker 1: a valve or a spigot as it were. Now this
Speaker 1: brings us back to mister Charles Taylor back in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six, so he files his patent in December nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six. The patent is still available for you to read.
Speaker 1: In fact, I did read it. I looked at the
Speaker 1: images and everything. It's pretty cool. No pun intended it
Speaker 1: used a compressor and use condenser coils and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It did rely on a salted liquid as
Speaker 1: the refrigerant and It used an electric motor to provide
Speaker 1: the churning motion in the freezing chambers, so it didn't
Speaker 1: require a human being to use their actual physical labor
Speaker 1: to churn the ice cream. And his ice cream chamber
Speaker 1: also featured a spout where you could draw the soft
Speaker 1: ice cream out by opening up a valve. There's some
Speaker 1: disagreement in the world of ice cream, which I did
Speaker 1: not realize was a thing, but it is. But there's
Speaker 1: some disagreement as to whether Chuck Taylor, Charlie Taylor, Charles
Speaker 1: I guess I should say, invented soft serve ice cream actually,
Speaker 1: or if someone else did, Whether he invented soft serve
Speaker 1: ice cream or he just made a machine that was
Speaker 1: really good at making it. The end of the line
Speaker 1: is that his device worked, and that's when he moved
Speaker 1: out of becoming an ice cream businessman to a ice
Speaker 1: cream maker businessman. He made the equipment that other ice
Speaker 1: cream shops would end up using, and thus was born
Speaker 1: the Taylor Freezer Company. Okay, we're gonna now flash forward
Speaker 1: by three decades. Now. We're up to nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: That was the year when the head of the McDonald's Corporation,
Speaker 1: a guy named Ray Croc, whom you can learn about
Speaker 1: in Other Stuff podcasts. I think Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: has done an episode on him. I'm sure like there's
Speaker 1: been stuff I Know. Ben Bullen must have talked about
Speaker 1: Ray Croc at least once or twice in some of
Speaker 1: his shows. Anyway, Raycroc made a deal with the Taylor
Speaker 1: Freezer Company to buy Taylor machines so that his restaurants
Speaker 1: could make milkshakes and that kind of thing, and this
Speaker 1: became a long standing partnership between McDonald's and Taylor. That
Speaker 1: partnership continues to this very day. Now. A few years back,
Speaker 1: McDonald's did sign a contract with another ice cream machine
Speaker 1: company called Carpigiani. So technically franchises have two options when
Speaker 1: it comes to buying an ice cream machine for their store,
Speaker 1: but they have to buy it from one of those
Speaker 1: two vendors because of this contract. Like you, as a
Speaker 1: franchise owner, you do own the store, but you still
Speaker 1: have obligations to the corporate entity of McDonald's and one
Speaker 1: of those is you've got to work with McDonald's suppliers,
Speaker 1: and that includes the suppliers for their equipment. You can't
Speaker 1: go outside the restaurant's family to do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But this still raises a question. Here are these tailor
Speaker 1: you know, freezer machines, these ice cream machines that can
Speaker 1: make all sorts of stuff when they're working, But why
Speaker 1: are they so frequently out of order? Right? Like, this
Speaker 1: is a company that traces its history back to nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six, What is the problem that causes essentially a
Speaker 1: third of all of the McDonald's franchises in the United
Speaker 1: States to list that their ice cream machine is currently
Speaker 1: you know, off the menu as it were. Why are
Speaker 1: they not working? Well? This comes down to a few
Speaker 1: key factors. One is that proper operation of the tailor
Speaker 1: ice cream machine that you find in McDonald's includes a
Speaker 1: cleaning process that is complicated. To put it lightly, part
Speaker 1: of that process is a four hour cleaning mode. During
Speaker 1: that mode, the machine actually heats up with the purpose
Speaker 1: to sanitize everything, which makes sense, right You're handling a
Speaker 1: lot of food items. You don't want anything to potentially
Speaker 1: cause food poisoning or for any contaminated food to cause
Speaker 1: an issue, So obviously cleaning is important and sanitizing makes sense.
Speaker 1: But when you are sanitizing it, you can't be using
Speaker 1: it to make ice cream, right. It's heating up and
Speaker 1: the process, like I said, takes four hours to do it.
Speaker 1: Whether or not the four hours aren't necessary for this process,
Speaker 1: I can't say, but that's how long it takes, and
Speaker 1: that means there's four hours of not making ice cream
Speaker 1: per day. Now. Of course, you could just run this
Speaker 1: mode as the McDonald's is closing for the night, and
Speaker 1: then technically it should just be ready to go by
Speaker 1: opening of the next day, right, But it is just
Speaker 1: one part of a multi step process. I think there
Speaker 1: were eleven steps total for cleaning these ice cream machines.
Speaker 1: And if someone goofs up while going through this cleaning process,
Speaker 1: you might end up getting an error code. Now, as
Speaker 1: I fix It discovered, the support documentation for the Tailor
Speaker 1: ice cream machines is let's just say it's somewhat lacking.
Speaker 1: It lacks comprehensibility. It may be difficult for you to
Speaker 1: even find an error code in the manual, and once
Speaker 1: you do, the explanation in the manual may not be
Speaker 1: sufficient for you to be able to figure out what
Speaker 1: exactly is wrong and how to fix it. So if
Speaker 1: you do mess something up, you could get an error code,
Speaker 1: but have no idea of what to do in order
Speaker 1: to clear the problem. At that point, the solution is
Speaker 1: to call a service person from Taylor and they send
Speaker 1: out a licensed, authorized service person to your your store
Speaker 1: and they do some maintenance and repair on the machine.
Speaker 1: That service has a very high price tag. According to
Speaker 1: I fix It. For fifteen minutes of service time, it
Speaker 1: costs three hundred and fifteen dollars, not an hour of
Speaker 1: service time. That's just fifteen minutes. If you took an
Speaker 1: entire hour to have this machine repaired, if it took
Speaker 1: the service person an hour to fix whatever the problem was,
Speaker 1: that would set you back oney two hundred and sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: That's some expensive ice cream, my friend. And again, according
Speaker 1: to ifix it, one quarter of tailor's revenue comes from
Speaker 1: the service calls, So wrap your head around that. A
Speaker 1: company that makes ice cream machines and other stuff too.
Speaker 1: Admittedly they make grills another equipment. Anyway, twenty five percent
Speaker 1: of their revenue comes not from their sales, but by
Speaker 1: sending out folks to fix those machines, which probably not
Speaker 1: a great selling point. Really, Like, if you are a
Speaker 1: customer and you find out that the vendor you're considering
Speaker 1: makes one quarter of their revenue by fixing the devices
Speaker 1: they sell. That raises the question of, well, how reliable
Speaker 1: is your product? Because if you're making one quarter of
Speaker 1: your revenue just from fixing the stuff you make, how
Speaker 1: often does it break? Because that sounds like it breaks
Speaker 1: a lot, because these are not cheap machines either. So
Speaker 1: I fix it suggests that perhaps, again this is just
Speaker 1: an observation, it's not a conclusion, but perhaps the uninformative
Speaker 1: technical manuals and the complicated cleaning process could be intentional
Speaker 1: in part as a way to generate service calls. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like planned obsolescence, you know. That's that concept
Speaker 1: that companies build into their devices a limited shelf life
Speaker 1: or a limited life cycle, so that they will break
Speaker 1: at a point where someone will have to replace it.
Speaker 1: It's kind of related to that that if Taylor's documentation
Speaker 1: were actually more helpful, maybe someone at the McDonald's could
Speaker 1: just hop in and do whatever was needed to clear
Speaker 1: out the error code, and then the ice cream would
Speaker 1: be back on the menu and there'd be very little
Speaker 1: downtime for the machine. But it appears that Taylor decided
Speaker 1: to make it very challenging for anyone other than someone
Speaker 1: from within their ecosystem to do this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That really became are in a few years ago when
Speaker 1: some hackers built a device using a Raspberry pie board.
Speaker 1: I've talked about the Raspberry Pie before. It's essentially a
Speaker 1: computer on a chip. Super cool. Anyway, this company created
Speaker 1: a device, and actually the company itself had the same
Speaker 1: name as the device, Kitch Kytch. This Kitch device could
Speaker 1: plug into a USB port that's inside the tailor ice
Speaker 1: cream machine. If you watch that I Fix It video,
Speaker 1: they'll actually show you where that USB port would be found.
Speaker 1: And whenever you would have an inevitable error message pop
Speaker 1: up on this machine, you could plug the Kitch device
Speaker 1: into the ice cream maker. It would read the error
Speaker 1: code and it would actually tell you what the problem was,
Speaker 1: and you know, potentially even how to fix it. So
Speaker 1: rather than have to thumb through this technical manual and
Speaker 1: maybe you never even find the error code in there
Speaker 1: because it's not arranged in a way that makes a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense, you get a readout right away
Speaker 1: on a connected device and you're able to take action. Now,
Speaker 1: a McDonald's franchise owner could purchase one of these Kitch
Speaker 1: devices and have the ability to address at least the
Speaker 1: less serious issues with their ice cream machines, you know,
Speaker 1: ones that wouldn't require someone to come out and maybe
Speaker 1: swap out apart or anything like that, and the ice
Speaker 1: cream machine would have less downtime. That would be great news.
Speaker 1: But I bet you can already guess what happened next.
Speaker 1: If you can't, don't worry. After this quick break, I'll
Speaker 1: be back and I'll explain what happened next. So Kitch
Speaker 1: comes out with this USB device built on a Raspberry
Speaker 1: Pie that will explain what the error codes and these
Speaker 1: tailor ice cream machines actually mean and potentially help you
Speaker 1: fix the problem. But McDonald's corporate was not happy about
Speaker 1: this because at the corporate level, McDonald's had signed an
Speaker 1: exclusive service contract with Taylor and this would mean that
Speaker 1: if they allowed their franchise operators to use a Kitch
Speaker 1: device and potentially sidestep the service contract, they would be
Speaker 1: in violation of that contract with Taylor. So the corporate
Speaker 1: leaders decided to send out a message to all franchises saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we know this thing exists, this diagnostic tool, but don't
Speaker 1: go us in it and Essentially, they put the pressure
Speaker 1: on the different restaurant franchisees who for the most part
Speaker 1: stopped using the Kitch device because it wasn't worth the
Speaker 1: frustration and the pressure from corporate and the threats that
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the franchise would end up getting into
Speaker 1: real trouble if they didn't just play ball with the
Speaker 1: service contract stuff. Now, the folks that I Fix it
Speaker 1: say that the two really big issues with these machines
Speaker 1: are that one, they will stop working if they overheat, right,
Speaker 1: which not that unusual for technology. Technology when it gets
Speaker 1: too hot, often will just stop working, and these ice
Speaker 1: cream machines are no different. So if they're in high demand,
Speaker 1: they can overheat, and then what you end up is
Speaker 1: ice cream that never actually solidifies. It just becomes goofy,
Speaker 1: and it can take a while for the machines to
Speaker 1: cool down enough to work again, so they essentially become offline.
Speaker 1: The other big issue is the one we've talked about
Speaker 1: just just recently. This idea about these error codes, paired
Speaker 1: with a really substandard technical manual, make it difficult, if
Speaker 1: not impossible, to figure out just what has gone wrong
Speaker 1: at any given time, so you can't really do anything
Speaker 1: about it except make a service call request. The I
Speaker 1: fix It video is great. They even open up a machine,
Speaker 1: They show all the different components. They explain, you know,
Speaker 1: where some of the issues can happen, explain what some
Speaker 1: of the switches do. They also talk about a really
Speaker 1: infuriating legal problem here in the United States that blocks
Speaker 1: I fix It or anyone else from creating a tool
Speaker 1: like the kitch. Why that's technically against the law because
Speaker 1: of the DMCA or Digital Millennial Copyright Act. And maybe
Speaker 1: you're thinking, how the heck does copyright law get into this. Well,
Speaker 1: the DMCA allows for essentially the owner of intellectual property
Speaker 1: to create digital locks to protect that property, and it's
Speaker 1: illegal to try and get around those locks. This, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, is a big, old stupid decision that the
Speaker 1: government made that has terrible consequences, and it's been in
Speaker 1: place since the nineties. So let me put it another way.
Speaker 1: Let's imagine a scenario where you've bought yourself a shiny
Speaker 1: music CD and I get it. You know CDs are
Speaker 1: not really the popular format, but let's just imagine for
Speaker 1: the sake of argument, you've gone out you bought yourself
Speaker 1: a CD of an album that you've always wanted. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's one that's not available digitally, and you love the
Speaker 1: music on this CD and you plan to listen to
Speaker 1: it a lot. You're going to even take it around
Speaker 1: with you and stuff. So you're a little concerned that
Speaker 1: you could be putting through the CD through a lot
Speaker 1: of wear and tear, and as such, you want to
Speaker 1: make a backup copy of the contents of that CD
Speaker 1: so that you still have that in case something happens
Speaker 1: to the CD itself. Now, copyright law in the United
Speaker 1: States allows you to do this. It is covered under
Speaker 1: fair use. You can make a copy of material for
Speaker 1: the purposes of backup or archival. That's fine as long
Speaker 1: as you're not distributing it, and you know you're pretty
Speaker 1: much in the clear. Just you can make a copy
Speaker 1: for your own purposes. But let's say that the company
Speaker 1: that pressed this music CD included some digital rights management,
Speaker 1: some DRM stuff on the CD itself, and that is
Speaker 1: meant to prevent unauthorized copying. But the problem is it
Speaker 1: actually prevents all copying, even if it otherwise would be legal,
Speaker 1: because you can't you can't really create a digital system
Speaker 1: that's like, oh, in this instance, we'll let you make
Speaker 1: a backup copy, but in every other case we're going
Speaker 1: to prevent it from happening. Instead, it's an all or nothing,
Speaker 1: We're going to prevent any kind of copying whatsoever that happens. Right.
Speaker 1: That's part of what a lot of DRM issues run into. Well.
Speaker 1: Hackers have spent a lot of time making tools that
Speaker 1: can circumvent different types of DRM, including the kind that
Speaker 1: was sometimes put on compact discs. So the DMCA has
Speaker 1: within it rules that say it's against the law to
Speaker 1: use or make those kinds of tools or to try
Speaker 1: and get around digital protection in the first place. So
Speaker 1: you have the legal right to back up the material
Speaker 1: that's on that CD, but you do not have the
Speaker 1: legal right to get around the digital locks that prevent
Speaker 1: you from making the copy. This is kind of like
Speaker 1: saying everything inside that bank vault belongs to you. However,
Speaker 1: it is illegal for you to open the bank vault,
Speaker 1: to breach it in any way to penetrate the walls.
Speaker 1: You can't get to the stuff that's inside the vault.
Speaker 1: It belongs to you, but you can't get to it.
Speaker 1: So again, in my opinion, this is dumb. It is
Speaker 1: a dumb consequence here that has really hurt consumers, especially
Speaker 1: just like regular valid consumers who have bought stuff and
Speaker 1: could not make a backup because there were these preventions
Speaker 1: in place for a problem that really isn't as big
Speaker 1: as the companies would have you believe. Anyway, The folks
Speaker 1: that I Fix It plan to appeal to Congress to
Speaker 1: try and create exemptions to DMCA for the purposes of
Speaker 1: maintenance and repair, including for industrial equipment like the tailor
Speaker 1: ice cream machine. So not just that machine. This is
Speaker 1: an issue that is prevalent throughout the tech sector and
Speaker 1: the industrial sector. It's not just for these ice cream machines.
Speaker 1: But until Congress makes such an exemption and writes it
Speaker 1: into law, trying to create ways to help folks avoid
Speaker 1: what some might view as extortionate service practices is technically
Speaker 1: against the law. You can't make the tools that bypass
Speaker 1: those locks, even if it's legal for you to make
Speaker 1: the repairs yourself. The locks you can't get around. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could technically get around them, but legally you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to. It is another one of those weird not
Speaker 1: quite a catch twenty two. It's not quite that level,
Speaker 1: but it's real close, and it is infuriating. It's one
Speaker 1: of those that lets you makes you look at politics
Speaker 1: and bureaucracy and you just say, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: live in the woods and I'll take a handcraked ice
Speaker 1: cream machine with me because I don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about that one so much. Anyway, I thought that this
Speaker 1: was going to be a pretty fun way to kind
Speaker 1: of explore the right to repair, the issues with things
Speaker 1: like copyright law that make the right to repair that
Speaker 1: much more complicated, and why it always seems to be
Speaker 1: the case that when you go to Mickey D's and
Speaker 1: you want yourself an ice cream, you can't get one
Speaker 1: because the ding dang darn machine is down. Now we understand,
Speaker 1: or at least we have a better grip on it. Also,
Speaker 1: make sure you go and check out that I Fix
Speaker 1: It video. Like I said, it's really good. They talk
Speaker 1: a lot more about the systems inside the machines. They
Speaker 1: give a passionate plea for the right to repair and
Speaker 1: the need for change in copyright law in the United States.
Speaker 1: It's well worth your time to watch. I don't have
Speaker 1: any connection to the I Fix It people, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't know any of them personally. I've never worked
Speaker 1: for the company. I just like their stuff. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode. I hope you're all well and staying cool.
Speaker 1: Get yourself an ice cream, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.