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Imagine, if you will, you're looking for a modest distraction from your soul-sucking job.

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So you head to the vending machine for a bag of chips and a Coke.

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You're only soulless in the whole world. But the universe apparently hates you, and your perfectly adequate dollar bill

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is rejected over and over again, even though you've tried smoothing it out

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and flipping it over more times than the USB connector in the back of your freaking PC.

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So how is it? We've mastered intercontinental flight, nuclear fission, a crown rack of lamb,

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but a bill acceptor that always works still eludes our grasp.

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I mean, the people that own vending machines presumably want the money,

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so why don't they just take it? Just take it!

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It turns out that bill acceptors have been around since the 1960s,

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and their original design had issues that made them annoying to use for decades to come.

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The main problem was that they used magnetic heads to scan a bill when it was inserted.

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These were similar to what you'd find in old audio cassette players.

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See, the ink they used to make paper money actually contains iron,

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but it's not for nutritional value. It's so magnetic heads can detect ink patterns on a banknote to figure out how much it's worth,

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and to confirm it is indeed money instead of some random piece of paper.

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Problem is, with all the notes that go through an average vending machine,

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those magnetic heads get dirty pretty fast. And it's not like there's always someone around to clean them off.

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Making the problem worse was that older designs had to physically press the head against the bill,

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so the machine was actually smearing dirt all over one of its most important parts.

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Not to mention that squeezing the banknote that way made a paper jam more likely.

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But current technology is better, so why are vending machines still so temperamental?

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Although more recent magnetic bill acceptors use an improved reader that doesn't need to

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physically touch that dollar bill that's been God knows where,

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dirt still finds its way to other crucial components. The little wheels that grab and pull your bill through the slot can clog up and break,

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and the optical sensors used by many newer vending machines to determine if the bill is

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real or fake can get dirty as well. In effect, you can see for yourself by trying to use your phone's fingerprint reader

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after making yourself a delicious PB&J.

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Some vending machines can actually compensate for a dirty bill slot

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by increasing the intensity of the light the optical sensors use,

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and some of those can even do it automatically if it detects lots of buildup.

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These advancements have made vending machines play more nicely with paper,

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or polymer, depending on where you live, compared to a few decades ago,

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but they're still obviously far from perfect. There are still enough delicate moving parts for things to go wrong.

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Just ask anyone who's ever owned an ink-gent printer.

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But even if the bill acceptor is super clean, the software still has to be configured properly.

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Some of them can have their sensitivity adjusted depending on the time of day,

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so it might be more likely to spit a bill back out at night

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when people may be more likely to try and use a counterfeit.

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Additionally, it needs to be updated whenever currency is redesigned,

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and given how many vending machines just aren't serviced regularly enough,

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it's not exactly surprising that rejected bills are still commonplace in the year of our Lord 2022.

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Of course, most vending machines sell fairly trivial items like my favorite smoothie ingredients,

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pork rinds, and Mountain Dew, so a crappy bill acceptor usually isn't the end of the world.

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The models built into more sensitive applications like ATMs and casino cash validators

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tend to be quite robust and serviced more frequently,

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so they're typically a lot less frustrating to use. You know, we could avoid so much of this if we just used $1 coins instead.

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God bless Canada. And bless you for watching this video.

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Like the video if you like it, dislike it if you disliked it. Check out our other videos and comment below with video suggestions.

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