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Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

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61–70 of 158 posts

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#61
There's a few machines like this in Spokane Valley, WA. Not that that the machine's operator is secret, but they have mystery buttons. It's been around for years and it's right outside a Coke distribution center(?). My siblings and I used to refer to it as, "The Mystery Magic Coke Machine"

https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6787458,-117.2733456,3a,49.5...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iNN12D4W7k

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, true Alternate Reality Games [0] peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s, even as the world has shrunk by orders of magnitude since. Perhaps that's the period when the internet itself was at its most Unknown, before the great silofication of everything. [0] ...as opposed to, say, ads with base64 "puzzles" tacked on or narrative-less viral videos with arbitrary distortion.

> true Alternate Reality Games peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. The internet was powerful enough to be bringing people together that could have never communicated or met before. It allowed niche interest groups to connect so that these types of stories and mysteries could proliferate and spread, but it was not so widespread and attention-focused that the myst…

> I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet.

You know how every generation thinks that the music they grew up with was the best and its all gone downhill from there? Well, lemme tell you little shits a story about Usenet and Eternal September...

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#63

Spoiler alert: it was the locksmith in front of whose shop the machine was allowed to exist (rent free)

I live in the neighborhood and have bought a few sodas from the machine. I always assumed it was locksmith, they are powering the machine and I've never seen nor heard a reason to believe it was anyone else.

It was a cute novelty, and if you're not picky it's a fast soda, but honestly it was just stocked with cheap, off-brand gross soda. Would have been genius if occasionally it gave you something interesting (or at least good).

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#64

I feel like we live in a world where it is becoming increasingly impossible for things like this to exist. I don’t have much commentary on the matter other than to say it makes me sad.

What are "things like this"?

Is it things that exist in public but which don't have clear attribution? B/c in 2020 there were the "monoliths", which were pretty cool. Or, you know, Banksy still exists. Or @fog_karla / @karlthefog for that matter.

Is it playful, non-scalable experiences? There's Improv Everywhere. My city has a number of curb-side bird-house sized "libraries". There's a guy who keeps doing extremely long walks in the UK in his speedo for charity but presumably also to make people smile.

There are more than 7.5B people on the planet and plenty of them are doing weird fun creative things. Just maybe fewer of them revolving around 80s soft drinks.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#65
post #52

I feel like we live in a world where it is becoming increasingly impossible for things like this to exist. I don’t have much commentary on the matter other than to say it makes me sad.

Not sure how many people will get the reference, but I was thinking this just yesterday about the Pokémon red and blue games. Back in the nineties many rumours spread about hidden secret in those games, but we didn’t have the internet to verify or debunk them. Like many kids back then me and my friends spent hours trying to move that truck to get a mew, but it was impossible, it was just a rumour that spread because…

There were rumors like that for the Final Fantasy games too, like how to get Leo in FF6 by doing something ridiculously complex (or just ridiculous) for hours on end. And then FWAKs, which satirized the whole phenomenon.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#66

I feel like we live in a world where it is becoming increasingly impossible for things like this to exist. I don’t have much commentary on the matter other than to say it makes me sad.

The smallish town where I live has a Yarn Bomber. She/he knits little totems and fixes them to street-lights and public fencing; sometimes even front doors. They are usually themed: Easter, Summer, Remembrance Sunday, Halloween, Christmas. And quite wonderful, I should add.

Of course I say "she/he". We all know who it is. It's no suprise our smallish town has such a great knit shop, and the bomber has been outed numerous times anyway.

But sometimes the really important thing is to learn how to play along.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#67
post #64

I feel like we live in a world where it is becoming increasingly impossible for things like this to exist. I don’t have much commentary on the matter other than to say it makes me sad.

What are "things like this"? Is it things that exist in public but which don't have clear attribution? B/c in 2020 there were the "monoliths", which were pretty cool. Or, you know, Banksy still exists. Or @fog_karla / @karlthefog for that matter. Is it playful, non-scalable experiences? There's Improv Everywhere. My city has a number of curb-side bird-house sized "libraries". There's a guy who keeps doing extremely l…

80s soft drinks is cool but when you realize what a plague upon humanity that sugar beverages are, it kind of detracts from the playfulness tbh. I stopped drinking soda years ago and haven't looked back. It is one of the largest causes of metabolic disease globally. And it's sad that people associate having a sugary beverage as a 'good time with friends.' Lets enjoy poison together?! :-/

I predict this won't go over well with the HN crowd who'll probably downvote me, and loves to snack on junk while coding, but there are better ways to get energy effortlessly without chewing or being protein heavy, like complex carbohydrates and MCT oils.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#68
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are "things like this"? Is it things that exist in public but which don't have clear attribution? B/c in 2020 there were the "monoliths", which were pretty cool. Or, you know, Banksy still exists. Or @fog_karla / @karlthefog for that matter. Is it playful, non-scalable experiences? There's Improv Everywhere. My city has a number of curb-side bird-house sized "libraries". There's a guy who keeps doing extremely l…

80s soft drinks is cool but when you realize what a plague upon humanity that sugar beverages are, it kind of detracts from the playfulness tbh. I stopped drinking soda years ago and haven't looked back. It is one of the largest causes of metabolic disease globally. And it's sad that people associate having a sugary beverage as a 'good time with friends.' Lets enjoy poison together?! :-/ I predict this won't go over…

>And it's sad that people associate having a sugary beverage as a 'good time with friends.' Lets enjoy poison together?! :-/

Oh boy, just wait until you learn about alcohol.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, true Alternate Reality Games [0] peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s, even as the world has shrunk by orders of magnitude since. Perhaps that's the period when the internet itself was at its most Unknown, before the great silofication of everything. [0] ...as opposed to, say, ads with base64 "puzzles" tacked on or narrative-less viral videos with arbitrary distortion.

> true Alternate Reality Games peaked in the mid-to-late 2000s I agree. Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet. The internet was powerful enough to be bringing people together that could have never communicated or met before. It allowed niche interest groups to connect so that these types of stories and mysteries could proliferate and spread, but it was not so widespread and attention-focused that the myst…

> Early 2000's were the glory years of the internet.

Oh, poor youngster...

Late 90's were damn anarchy on NNTP servers, videos, IRC channls full of nerds and not nerds...

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#70
post #47

A "fun fact" my son loves: more people are killed by vending machines than sharks each year [1]. Perhaps it murdered someone and went into hiding? 1. https://medium.com/purple-theory/vending-machines-vs-sharks-...

Sure…it’s fun. But also feels disingenuous in a way. People are rocking the machines in an attempt to get a free soda are killed. This is compared against unprovoked shark attacks. Probably a fairer comparison if you only count unprovoked vending machine deaths too then.

Sigh, ruining fun facts. ;(

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