[HN Gopher] Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine
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Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine
Author : zdw
Score : 270 points
Date : 2021-07-27 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| 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.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I think that this has lead to the popularity of ARG/Analog
| Horror/SCP/etc. The Unknown is shrinking, so we need to create
| the Unknowable.
| mintplant wrote:
| 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.
| jmcgough wrote:
| ARG for promoting films / games kinda peaked as a guerilla
| marketing campaign then. Once it became less novel, less
| money was spent on developing them.
|
| But yeah they become a lot less compelling when it's solved
| so quickly and there's wikis devoted to them.
| jacurtis wrote:
| > 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 mysteries dissolved.
|
| I'm actually surprised that this mystery survived into
| 2018. I would have expected some Tik
| Tok/Instagram/YouTube/Facebook influencer to camp out all
| week with a camera to find the mystery re-stocker like they
| were hunting santa clause. The video would go viral for 8
| hours, the influencer would get their 15 mins of fame, then
| the mystery would be forever ruined. The internet would
| forget that there was ever a time when we didn't know how
| this machine worked, and the mystery would cease to exist.
|
| Edit: Ok, apparently someone did camp out and ruined the
| mystery, spotting who restocks it. [Source - If you really
| want to know, but the mystery will be ruined...](https://ww
| w.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mys...)
| Aeolun wrote:
| Well, it's clear now!
|
| TBH, that picture couldn't give us less information if it
| tried...
| tabtab wrote:
| I would hope Capitol buildings had better security so that
| Putin cant randomly put in an arcade claw game with microphones
| and radar. (Cue SNL's Elf and Shelf.)
| quickthrowman wrote:
| You must not have read the article, it is on Capitol Hill in
| Seattle, which is in the state of Washington, not Washington
| D.C.
| tabtab wrote:
| Seattle may have or influence tech secrets Russia wants.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I can assure you that there are no tech secrets on
| Capitol Hill in Seattle. It is a bar district and lively
| neighborhood, but contrary to its name has little to do
| with government.
|
| A vending machine on the street of a random american
| neighborhood is not a security risk.
| travoc wrote:
| They want to manipulate the weather on our toolbars and
| sell us counterfeit goods.
| Aeolun wrote:
| On the other hand, the internet also makes it possible for
| someone like me, on the other side of the world, to learn that
| it exists.
| kypro wrote:
| Not sure how many people will get the reference, but I was
| thinking this just yesterday about the Pokemon 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
| back then no one knew for sure if it was possible or not. That
| couldn't happen with the internet today.
|
| Another thing I remember growing up in the nineties was being
| told orbs in photos were spirts, and again without the internet
| I couldn't prove or disprove it. It was a complete mystery
| which I thought about all the time.
|
| The internet has taken a lot of those mysteries away. Don't get
| me wrong, it's really cool that we're able to look things up so
| easily on our phones today, but I do share your sadness that
| the world isn't as mysterious as it once was.
| iscrewyou wrote:
| This but with the Mario games. I couldn't believe it there
| were shortcuts in the first game. Someone told me and I
| didn't believe them. Same with contra and how you could have
| more than 3 lives. The shortcuts spread through word of mouth
| and some you wouldn't find out after years of gameplay.
| pbronez wrote:
| It's literally a story about this thing happening.
| [deleted]
| kgermino wrote:
| It's a story about it ending 3 years ago. Not sure if I agree
| with GP but "here's a story of something that used to happen"
| doesn't contradict "this type of thing can't happen anymore"
| GavinMcG wrote:
| In the past. The comment said "increasingly impossible,"
| looking toward the future.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| In 2018, which was extremely recent. It's not like this
| thing stopped once Facebook came into existence.
| 1986 wrote:
| It's a story about this thing going away!
| fighterpilot wrote:
| It's literally a story about this having happened in the past
| and having stopped.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Nothing wrong with a more orderly, predictable, benign, ideally
| deterministic world without variance.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| Isn't there? The moon is a "world" without variance, but I
| wouldn't want to live there!
| ip_addr wrote:
| Pass the Soma.
| voldacar wrote:
| might want to get your T levels checked
| mindcrime wrote:
| _He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken
| him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark
| moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn,
| self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented
| tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all
| right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
| He had won the victory over himself. Voidfunc loved Big
| Brother._
| meowkit wrote:
| Not sure if this comment is sarcastic. Perfect determinism
| doesn't exist in the human condition. To embrace such
| invariance is to embrace the sterilization of art, culture,
| and our ability to adapt to the unpredictable.
| chucksta wrote:
| All is not lost, behold the Shrek Box;
|
| http://phillynews.fyi/22327/shrek-box-appears-in-south-phila...
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I came here to say something like this, it makes me sad too,
| but I do have commentary on it.
|
| Imagine buying beer or wine from your local dude who brews for
| fun, like at a farmers market. There's a sense of community in
| things like that. But you can't, that guy would have to spend
| six figures on commercial licensing and FDA inspections and
| code compliance and whatever else.
|
| We can't just buy things from people anymore, we have to be
| consumers and can only buy from businesses, there has to be a
| clear cut distinction, all our relationships must be in
| compliance. Governments are regulating and taxing our
| communities out of existence and leaving us with a sterile
| system of impersonal distribution in which they are the
| middleman so that they can milk every cent that is "rightfully"
| theirs out of every single interaction everyone has.
| mattkevan wrote:
| In a sort of similar vein there was the Mystery of the South
| London Hellraiser VHS.
|
| A few years ago, someone spotted a Hellraiser VHS on the roof
| of a bus stop. It was removed and a replacement appeared. Then
| it happened again. Then more Hellraisers appeared on other bus
| stops.
|
| It can still be seen on Google Maps.
|
| I always thought Stoke Newington was a gateway to hell, so it
| was good to have it confirmed.
|
| https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3299131/bizarre-story-vhs...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe we should internet-sleuth Ebay auctions of Hellraiser
| VHS copies and see if it's the same account winning them.
| smitty1e wrote:
| I'm going to take a contrarian view here and opine that society
| will rebound from the fascination with "AutoTuned" reality.
|
| (Eventually), it may settle on a minimal set of areas where
| everything has to be spied upon and logged to a fare-the-well.
|
| Grew up just fine without Alexa.
| futhey wrote:
| 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...
| ju-st wrote:
| 2nd link for Europeans:
| http://archive.is/2017.08.07-014013/http://www.capitolhillse...
| asadhaider wrote:
| Also European (UK) and can access the original link just
| fine.
| techsupporter wrote:
| Quick question: Why "for Europeans?" I tried from a couple of
| EU-based endpoints and could access the second link just
| fine. What error did you get?
|
| I ask because I know the operator of CHS via a friend of a
| friend kind of thing.
| thesimon wrote:
| Error 1020: Access denied by Cloudflare.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Not gonna lie, keeping up a machine like this spitting fire
| drinks for years is a great couple's activity.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Aw, totally random to see Seattle on the front page.
|
| Yes it's gone and the locksmith shop is still there, for now...
| hereforphone wrote:
| Spoiler alert: it was the locksmith in front of whose shop the
| machine was allowed to exist (rent free)
| praisewhitey wrote:
| There's photos confirming it's not the locksmith himself doing
| it, but they're presumably the owner who oversees management of
| the machine.
|
| https://twitter.com/saeofdoom/status/460157462197198849?s=20
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > dispensed drinks were rare cans that were either ordinarily
| unavailable in the United States or have not been in circulation
| since the 1980s
|
| > In June 2018, the machine mysteriously disappeared
|
| I don't think it's mysterious. The owner likely ran out of full,
| rare cans of soda and could not / did not want to source them
| anymore.
| dylan604 wrote:
| or he didn't have to restock it because at some point, people
| got tired of drinking flat stale soda from the 80s
| xenadu02 wrote:
| > I don't think it's mysterious. The owner likely ran out of
| full, rare cans of soda and could not / did not want to source
| them anymore.
|
| For folks who aren't aware your local distributor cans /
| bottles a much wider variety of product than what you find on
| typical grocery store shelves. If you have a commercial account
| with them you can get the list. Sometimes they make special
| runs for a promotion, special event, or special client order.
| Depending on the circumstances and if you have a good
| relationship with your sales rep you may be able to get
| notified and grab a case or two.
|
| It is possible they were vending long expired drinks... but it
| is also possible they simply had a hookup at the distributor
| and sourced rare drinks from time to time.
| slaughtr wrote:
| I never got anything particularly weird out of that machine.
| Drunkenly dropped $20 in it a few times. Mostly it was the odd
| flavors of things you only see in specialty stores, but I never
| saw anything "rare" other than an out of season Mtn Dew.
| every wrote:
| I lived in a co-op decades ago that had something like this. It
| was an old, single brand soft drink machine. The co-op however
| stocked it with cheap bottled beer. You had no idea what would
| appear in the slot when you fed in your coins. And it was a sad
| day indeed when Special Export came sliding down the shute...
| whearyou wrote:
| Would be eerie if it wasn't so darn cool
| ro_bit wrote:
| This reads like an SCP
| klyrs wrote:
| It's funny, I probably walked by that thing a few hundred times,
| but I don't drink soda so I ignored it entirely. But once the
| locksmith was mentioned, its location clicked in my head, a dim
| rectangular outline of a hole in my spatial memory. Brains are so
| weird.
| ppierald wrote:
| The combination of social networks and global warming are gonna
| doom us all.
| nightfly wrote:
| My wife and I made sure to see it when we went to Seattle in 2017
| xrd wrote:
| 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-...
| nitwit005 wrote:
| A friend of mine has a soda machine in his business with a
| similar question mark button. He had the same idea of stocking
| some less common items in it. Apparently people occasionally feed
| it money and press it repeatedly.
| samoyy wrote:
| I've been passing by this since I was kid, it's funny that it's
| getting so much interest now. I would just use it like a normal
| vending machine lol
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(page generated 2021-07-27 23:00 UTC)