If you have been in a public restroom in recent years, you have encountered the amusing sight of a person frantically waving at an unresponsive paper towel dispenser. It is not so amusing when you are the waver. For the most part, gone are the days of simply turning a crank-like device on the side of the dispenser to dispense paper towels. Where I work, our restrooms and break rooms are equipped with the high-tech type.
What I find fascinating about these units is not so much when the don't dispense as they should, it is when they do dispense for no apparent reason. This morning, for example, I went into the coffee room/break room to clean my tea mug and fix a cuppa. The paper towel dispensed upon command. You know, one simple wave in front of the glowing LED. Then a few minutes later, while I was filling my cup with hot water to steep my tea, the dispenser ejected another linear foot or so of paper towel.
There must be some explanation for what appears to be random behavior: a delayed response to an earlier movement I made or perhaps the sensor is more sensitive in certain directions. But, I don't know the explanation. And that makes the 'automatic' paper towel dispenser a perfect microcosm of a world in which behavior of machines often falls so far short of fulfilling a promise of making life better. I see the obvious gap between what it SHOULD do and what it DOES do, but I can't determine cause and effect.
And there is that extra length of paper towel half hanging into the sink that no-one will want to use...
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