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How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

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Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#21

Post by grecy »

vacri wrote: post #18
grecy wrote: post #10

I grew up in rural Australia, and we used to host a ton of exchange students from North America. Driving from Melbourne back to my home town, there is a huge billboard saying "Next McDonalds 100km" (60 mi.). Many times we would have to pull over so the American exchange students could take a photo, as they were in disbelief they were so far away from one. On that same road you're easily 250km (130mi.) away, but there…

Ah, but there may be a McDonalds behind you that's much closer!

Haha, no. It's a 500km (310mi.) drive, and there is only a McDonalds at the start and one at the end.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#22

Post by gmaslov »

tzs wrote: post #8

> Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? An interesting kind of related question is to ask what is the farthest you've ever been away from other humans. For most of us, we've never been more than a few miles from others. I've read that the record is probably held by one of the Apollo astronauts who remained in lunar orbit while the landing party landed.

Hmm, that's probably right. I thought that whoever visited the bottom of the Marianas Trench might be a contender, but again it turns out that there were two people in the bathyscape.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#23

Post by qdog »

jleader wrote: post #19
narcissus wrote: post #7

I know it's not really related but still... this article reminded of the section in the book 'Behind The Golden Arches' that discussed that although many people think that there are too many McDonald's restaurants around, there are still more car dealerships. And how many times do you buy a car compared to a burger? So this article claims around 13,000 McDonald's restaurants, and I just found a page that claims 37,50…

When you say "separate ... dealership franchises", are you counting each physical location once, or once per brand? Around here, many dealerships carry multiple brands. Also, there tend to be multiple dealerships clustered together (probably due to zoning, and tax incentives that some municipalities offer), so they're not as smoothly distributed as McDonalds. Still, those are amazing numbers!

There are small towns around where I grew up that have a car dealership, but no McDonalds. Or multiple car dealerships to a single McDonalds.

Hmm, come to think of it I think towns of 20-30k usually have 2 or 3 car dealers (usually one each for the big 3), but only a single McDonalds.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#24

Post by nawariata »

steve-howard wrote: post #4

>Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? And how would you figure that out? I'm an insomniac much of the time. Some weeks/months I don't sleep until it's light out. Out here in suburban Chicago, the only places still open to me when it's late and I'm hungry are 7-11, McDonald's, and Burger King. So I'll take "generic convenience," because it at least makes my life…

Don't expect high energy when you munch on McDonalds, look into what proper nutrition can do for your body and mind.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#25

Post by Tichy »

tzs wrote: post #8

> Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? An interesting kind of related question is to ask what is the farthest you've ever been away from other humans. For most of us, we've never been more than a few miles from others. I've read that the record is probably held by one of the Apollo astronauts who remained in lunar orbit while the landing party landed.

How high is the lunar orbit?

What about some people drifting shipwrecked on the ocean?

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#26

Post by DanBC »

Tichy wrote: post #25
tzs wrote: post #8

> Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? An interesting kind of related question is to ask what is the farthest you've ever been away from other humans. For most of us, we've never been more than a few miles from others. I've read that the record is probably held by one of the Apollo astronauts who remained in lunar orbit while the landing party landed.

How high is the lunar orbit? What about some people drifting shipwrecked on the ocean?

The moon is about 60 Earth radii away from the centre of the Earth.

It's considerably further away than someone could get in a boat.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#27

Post by JonnieCache »

steve-howard wrote: post #4

>Which begs the question: just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? And how would you figure that out? I'm an insomniac much of the time. Some weeks/months I don't sleep until it's light out. Out here in suburban Chicago, the only places still open to me when it's late and I'm hungry are 7-11, McDonald's, and Burger King. So I'll take "generic convenience," because it at least makes my life…

This sounds like a vicious circle to me.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#28

Post by tsm »

DanBC wrote: post #26
Tichy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How high is the lunar orbit? What about some people drifting shipwrecked on the ocean?

The moon is about 60 Earth radii away from the centre of the Earth. It's considerably further away than someone could get in a boat.

But he's significantly closer to the landing party on the moon.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#29

Post by andersh »

If you look closely you can see his coloring algorithm is broken. The "spheres" of close restaurants appear to "squash" each other rather than just intersecting. The result is grooves between restaurant spheres that should be more brightly coloured. If anyone even notices this comment and replies to it, I expect them to be disagreeing with me.

TL;DR: I can tell by the pixels.

Re: How Far Can You Get From McDonald's?

#30

Post by andersh »

If you look closely you can see his coloring algorithm is broken. The "spheres" of close restaurants appear to "squash" each other rather than just intersecting. The result is grooves between restaurant spheres that should be more brightly coloured. If anyone even notices this comment and replies to it, I expect them to be disagreeing with me.

TL;DR: I can tell by the pixels.

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