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Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

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Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#81

Post by ectopod »

abeppu wrote: post #64
ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

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…

Banksy is a marketing man. He pretends to be anti-establishment but his organisation defends his IP as fiercely as Disney defends its. He is all about the money.

I agree that that the world is full of weird, creative people, but you won't find them at Sotheby's.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#82

Post by Nition »

abeppu wrote: post #64
ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

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…

Say you set up this vending machine today. More and more people quickly find out about it. Eventually a few people are waiting for it to be restocked so they can quickly buy all the rare cans and sell them on eBay, so it's empty most of the time. Maybe the owner gets discovered. The fun is gone and it gets removed.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#83

Post by peanut_worm »

as-j wrote: post #70
xrd wrote: 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. ;(

That implies that there are a lot of provoked shark attacks

I bet the sum of provoked and unprovoked shark attacks is still less than the unprovoked and provoked soda machine deaths ;)

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#84

Post by ALittleLight »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #76
cowboysauce wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I might be able to compartmentalize slightly better than GP, but as much as that machine is charming as hell and brings warmth to my heart, soda has more or less been a plague on humanity. Unlike soda, alcohol has a lot going for it, because unless you abuse it, it can be a pretty wonderful, unique inebriant.

Soda can make you fat and brown your teeth. It doesn't create addicts who destroy their lives over it. Soda doesn't kill people via Drunk Driving. Soda doesn't contribute to violent crimes and domestic violence.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#85

Post by kazinator »

ALittleLight wrote: post #84
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be able to compartmentalize slightly better than GP, but as much as that machine is charming as hell and brings warmth to my heart, soda has more or less been a plague on humanity. Unlike soda, alcohol has a lot going for it, because unless you abuse it, it can be a pretty wonderful, unique inebriant.

Soda can make you fat and brown your teeth. It doesn't create addicts who destroy their lives over it. Soda doesn't kill people via Drunk Driving. Soda doesn't contribute to violent crimes and domestic violence.

That's right!

"Might as well go for a soda; nobody hurts, nobody cries."

- Kim Mitchell

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#86

Post by ajhurliman »

ectopod wrote: post #81
abeppu wrote: 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…

Banksy is a marketing man. He pretends to be anti-establishment but his organisation defends his IP as fiercely as Disney defends its. He is all about the money. I agree that that the world is full of weird, creative people, but you won't find them at Sotheby's.

I don't think defending your IP makes you a sell-out. It's basically his alter ego, why would he let his identity be co-opted by strangers?

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#87

Post by cryptoz »

as-j wrote: post #70
xrd wrote: 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. ;(

I don't think there's such a thing as "unprovoked shark attacks". First, it's called an encounter now, not an attack, and that change is relevant to the question at hand. When sharks hurt people, I think it is typically the people that have invaded the home of the shark (and thus provoked it) and not the other way around (and thus unprovoked). There are no shark attacks when humans are minding their own business on land.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#88

Post by mindcrime »

xrd wrote: 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-...

Another bit of trivia I always found interesting... approximately zero people per year die in elevator crashes. That basically isn't a real thing that happens.

Of the very small number of people who are killed by elevators, they are almost all elevator technicians / maintenance people who are in the shaft doing repairs and have some kind of accident.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#89

Post by madeofpalk »

abeppu wrote: post #64
ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

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…

I think dril is an interesting case in this - the creator has been outed, but many just don't care and refuse to read and find out who it is. The mystery is the appeal.

I don't want to know who dril is.

Re: Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine

#90

Post by mastazi »

ju-st wrote: post #10
futhey wrote: post #3

Background: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/capitol-hills-magi... Restocking: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mys... Disappearance: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/seattle-mystery-soda-m...

2nd link for Europeans: http://archive.is/2017.08.07-014013/http://www.capitolhillse...

I appreciate you putting out an alternative link.

Unfortunately I cannot access archive.is (shows a Cloudflare page with Google reCaptcha).

Why not using the more well known archive.org instead?

Also IIRC archive.is is hard to access for some users depending on the DNS server they're using.

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