Shop Till It Drops 494
Ando Japando writes "There's an article on NYTimes.com about a new vending machine in the US. Unlike the typical machine, this one is 18 ft wide and takes up 200 square ft. Of course, the convenience stores are not sure if this machine is a boon or a boo, but many people like it because it doesn't take up a lot of space. It'd be really cool to see these all over the place. Others complain about the lack of human interaction and perceive it as dehumanizing. That may be true, but at least it's not a live bait vending machine."
This may be new in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
NYT login (Score:3, Informative)
login: generic99
password: generic
Re:you always forget! (Score:3, Informative)
It'll never work in NYC (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This may be new in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
Besides the ones you often hear about (porn, etc), some wierd ones I've seen in japan include:
- A machine selling potted plants -- fairly large, leafy ones (like a foot high), complete with a big clay flowerpot. It looked like it had a fairly elaborate mechanism to deliver the plants to a little door (well actually a pretty big door) without harming them.
The wierd thing is that all of the above were not in obvious `specialty' locations (e.g., near a nursery for the plants), but just in front of fairly average train stations, or just on the street in the middle of nowhere!I do not understand...
We've had there for years! (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a picture of it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Old News in Japan (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the previous company I worked for had a vending machine that dispensed beer (MGD and Icehouse), it was right next to the coke machine, and it didn't check id. The name of the company was Rockwell Software [rockwellsoftware.com], but I'm not sure if they still have the machine or not, it's been a few years since I've worked there.
Re:First they came for the Indians... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Porn vending machines (Score:3, Informative)
Rubber machines are around, though. They aren't common, but you see them every once in a while. Oddly, they don't usually seem to be in proximity to any sex-related businesses, not even love hotels. There's one about 50 meters from one of my neighborhood convenience stores. Weird, because the convenience store also sells rubbers. There was also one on the road to the local high school, but it's gone now. I don't know if:
1) High school students don't use rubbers much;
2) The school pressured them to take it away;
3) The students stole it
I haven't seen a pr0n vending machine in a long time, either. They may have been outlawed. Pr0n involving underage girls only got outlawed a couple years ago. Up until then, my neighborhood video store used to sell it.
Tokyo and Nagano were the last two prefectures to outlaw prostitution by girls under 18. Before that, they both drew the line at 16 (the age of majority in Japan is 20). Tells you what politicians here and in Nagano are up to
While on that topic, and contrary to the squeaky clean media image that Japan works to hard to maintain abroad, prostitution is big business here. Whorehouses and similar operations are commonplace and operate openly, with signs describing what kind of place it is. This despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Japan. The country's least enforced law. If it's enforced at all, it's only against foreign streetwalkers. Japanese ones are safe. Also contrary to the squeaky clean media image, there's a huge amount of xenophobia and racism here.
Prostitution is very expensive here, though. Figure on $250 or more for sex, and that's *if* they'll let you in if s you're a foreigner. Some of the workers there may be foreigners (Southeast Asian or Eastern European) but in most places only Japanese are allowed to be customers. And I don't mean only Japanese citizens. I mean only ethnic Japanese (this doesn't include Japanese-Americans or anything like that, either, unless they can pass themselves off as Japanese by speaking at a native level).
It's an odd place.
Oh, about capsule hotels. They don't cost anything like $100 a night. They're the cheapest accomodations around, try $35 - $50. This is dirt cheap in Japan. Only the gutter is less
Re:This may be new in the USA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:bad puns. (Score:2, Informative)
A woman walks into a pub and asks the barman for a Double Entendre. The barman gives her one.
See, "double entendres" sounds like a drink, which is half of the joke. Saying "sexual innuendo" gives it away and ruins the punchline. I doubt anyone finds this funny now that it's been repeated 3 times though!! ;-)
Re:Standard Issue (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think the shop had much of a vandalism problem, although at times it attracted a pretty rough crowd in the early morning hours (Ten years ago, the Heroin scene was pretty close to the main station, and even today, many of the Zurich homeless, although there aren't all that many, hang around main station). It's built pretty solidly.
Re:This may be new in the USA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:i like this... (Score:1, Informative)
I live up the street from the machine in the NY Times article. I rented a DVD ($1.59!) from it one of the first days it was open. Took it home and it was scratched to hell. What was my recourse? I ended up going back over there and one of the staff happened to be standing there, and she gave me my money back out of her purse. But that's not very sustainable!
Incidentally, I have a good closeup of what's stocked in the machine on this page [u.nu].