Awaiting Hormel's comment? Sure it didn't filed as spam?
Still, when it comes to food-serving machines, some ideas can be quite rash, others are rasher.
It is with great sadness that we must announce the passing of the Ohio Pork Council's bacon vending machine after an all-too-short sojourn at the Meat Sciences Department of Ohio State University. The vending machine allowed hungry students to sate their penchant for porcine produce with just a $1 bill. Alas, all good things …
That's Hormel, purveyors of the finest bacon substitute. Also in bulk for spam carving competitions.. those crazy Yanks. We Brits do understand the benefits of Spam fitting nicely into most sandwich toasters, and filling the need for food, now, and not involving naked flames.
E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAqIynamBMY
Holy crap! Those tiny little slices are more fat than meat! And you'd need a whole pack just to male one bacon buttie. And it's pre-cooked for you in a microwave! Sacrilege!!!
If I had a Facebook account I'd be starting up a campaign to collect and donate bacon care packages to send to those poor suffering souls in the US. And maybe a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for re-education centres to teach those poor deluded souls what bacon is meant to be.
Come on El Reg! It's Christmas. Can we re-vitalise the SPB and arrange air drops of real bacon for our colonial cousins via a fleet a PARIS aircraft? We could name the project PIIIIIIIGS IN SPAAAAAACE!
> And by pure coincidence, very generous pork-based pies are available.
Long ones, presumably...
[May I just interject a gripe here? I'm conditioned over many decades to indent my text with a <TAB> character -- but text entry boxes on web sites invariably take a <TAB> to mean "go to the next element in the page". I'm continually going, "WTF has my focus gone??!"]
"everythings gonna be web based soon"
Sorry, but while you were in a comma for the past 20 years, things have moved on. Blockchains (aka Linked Lists) are now the Next Big Thing, and Smart Contracts (Computer Programs), and Artificial Intelligence (Computer Programs with if statements).
"[TAB] has been the [next field] key for the -also many- decades of HTML existence, it's strange that you would only notice it now."
And for many more decades of accounting system data-entry, both main frame and PC.
TAB has only ever been spaces in word processing, shirley?
<tab> is not spaces. It's the distance to the next <tab> position. It may, or may not, be related to the beginning of a paragraph, depending on your <tab> settings. I take it all y'all have never used an actual typewriter?
Whatever. It's used as "go to next field" on (most) computer systems. Has been for longer than I've been using computers (over 50 years). That's why software that (easily) allows printable <tab>s to be placed into text with the <tab> key is inherently evil. There is a reason the phrase "no feelthy tabs!"[0] exists.
And stop calling me Shirley.
[0] See: the Info-ZIP "NO FEELTHY" rules. Rule #1.
Fans of director Michael Bay found the latest fan convention a vast improvement on previous years*
Fans of much loved movie star (lets call him... Kevin) underwhelmed by photo booth
Are you salty about that terrible pun?
Restocking that vending machine must have been a pig of a job!
...
* y'know... Bay-Con (Yes i know that's not what Baycon is #dontexplainthejoke)
I was wondering if you could have a cook and dispense system using something like the fusing rollers from a laser printer. Raw bacon goes in, cooked bacon comes out. Vary the speed to adjust how cooked you want it.
It's not quite as good as my idea to use a raclette grill mounted sideways to make a personal doner kebab machine.
It's been done for chips (fries, frites) - although there was an earlier machine at Seaton Carew in the late 1960s. Not sure if that was similar technology.
It's been done for chips (fries, frites)
and bread or indeed pizzas. The linked article is for a single brand but these exist in various parts of the world. As spotted by yours truly : US, Canada, UK, France, Croatia. I couldn't comment on the output's quality though. I tend to like my pizzas with genuine pizzaiolo fingerprints (except perhaps for that one time in Tyne and Wear but let's not delve in that)
You can get ovens with a conveyor belt that pulls the product through it. A lot of commercial kitchens have them. Not in vending machine format, but you could build a vending machine around it that drops the uncooked product onto the conveyor belt when the customer pays for it, then it gets dispensed once it has been cooked.
Much like a wave soldering machine. Parts are placed into a belt; the belt moves and carries the parts through one or more heated/cooled areas. I did work with a Korean gentleman who was modifying the equipment to cook a sheet of some Korean delicacy. Probably work on those flat Jewish crackers too
"[...] what the hell eat-ready & shelf-ready bacon is [...]"
In the UK you can buy refrigerated packets of very crisp cooked bacon. Useful for crumbling as a garnish on salads etc.
Last Xmas Waitrose supermarket were selling a banana trifle with bacon sprinkles on top. Tried a free sample - surprisingly no discernible taste apart from sweet.
Pre-cooke and vacuum-sealed in a plastic sleeve. It will keep almost indefinitely at room temperature. Can be microwaved crispy (out of the sleeve) in 10 - 20 seconds in a microwave. Not a great bacon but when I just want some quick bacon bits for, e.g., making a salad edible or whipping up a peanut butter and bacon sandwich, it's quite acceptable.
but they made a real pigs ear of it. The article tells porkies; rashly it doesn't vend real bacon. Sorry to squeal on your article, but gammon, get real; and no you aren't casting pearls before swine. You need a good grilling.
I'll get my coat... mine's the one with the pork scratchings in the pocket.
...just seems to ignore the demand for
VR - Virtual Rashers
PaaS - Porkbelly as-a-Service
BaaS - Bacon as-a-Service
SaaS - Sizzle as-a-Service
and outporking...
Oh and not forgetting Artificially Intelligent porky stuff https://internetofbusiness.com/alibaba-ai-platform-pig-farming/
... oh and IoT - Internet-of-Trotters
If only this could be repurposed so that it would dispense perfectly cooked quality dry cured back bacon, delicately placed upon a floury bap, spread with real butter and with the customers choice of (proper) red or brown sauce.
Future machines could include the option to add a fried egg done how you like and/or a meltingly delicious slice of Stornoway black pudding.
This would be the lord of machines and I would worship at it's little plastic feet.
... the other 99.9%+ of humanity doesn't live in the UK, you insular twit.
Besides, the rest of us know how to cook, and use a cast iron skillet. (Except students, of course.) Most of the rest of us also know how to cure and smoke our own meat. But please, do enjoy your Greggs, the bakery that doesn't seem to know how to make bread. Or properly use apostrophes.