Japanese man documents the life of a vending machine
Michael says:
"A man in Japan has been taking a photo of the same vending machine every day and intensely noting the changes. He compares to previous years, draws diagrams of movements, and keeps complete tabs on everything else. Also remarkable is how clean and unbroken it remains the entire time. How long could an outdoor machine like this last in America?"
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That's one of the more charming examples of OCD I've seen this week.
My son was in Japan last summer for a study abroad semester. He had an assignment in which he had to interview Japanese people on the street and his group chose to ask about vending machine experiences. One of the questions they asked was something like "what do you do if you put in your money and don't get the right item or if nothing comes out?" Almost all of the people they spoke to were VERY confused by this. They got responses like "how can that happen?" or "It cannot be." They did find one or two who had lost money to a machine to whom they then taught the English idiom "the machine ate my money." The Japanese were quite amused by this concept.
Most of the vending machines in Japan are monitored by surveillance cameras. It's not like there is no bad guys in Japan. When I was there, there were people trying to use Korean coins, which are a lot cheaper than Japanese coins, in those machines.
It reminded me of the French film, Amelie, where she tracks down a photo-booth repair man.
A vending machine in America can survive in the wild for quite some time, depending upon location. Here is a picture of a vending machine that's lived in the wilds of Seattle for what seems like ever. COKE MACHINE, NEAR CORNER OF JOHN & BROADWAY
I work in the vending industry, and we have a number of machines located outside. We have more break-ins and attempted break-ins at inside locations ( more privacy ) than outside. We did have some machines at an abandoned Driving Range that ended up being completely disassembled and set on fire, but that was the exception rather than the rule.
This is why the internet was invented, for truly great projects like this.
Does the guy not like Pepsi or are there actually no Pepsi machines around his wanderings?
Here's hoping to both.
And conversely, after I went to Japan, I discovered that 10-yen coins work great as quarters in US vending machines!
Um, I mean, that's what I've been told. Of course, I would never cheat an honest vending machine distribution businessman like that. Now that I'm old.
1) These things are usually under lights, and some of them (esp. booze ones, if you can still find one) shut down after a certain time (11PM is when the ones around my dorm when I was a student shut down). I have never seen a camera on a vending machine, and I've lived all over Japan. That isn't to say there aren't any, and now I'm on a mission to find one, but really. Never. Maybe I'm just unobservant, though. But the point is that the fact that they don't get destroyed isn't really that surprising. A lot of them are in residential districts, too, so there are houses all over the place. A lot of us would wake up if the machines on the corner were hit. Besides, if the ruffians broke the machines, where would they buy canned coffee to drink in the middle of the night while smoking? Nowhere, that's where.
2) Come to think of it, no, a Japanese vending machine has never eaten my money. Also, the bill readers actually read bills. I've never had a bill spit back out at me. You also don't have to use bills so much because Japan is smart enough not to start paper money until about $10 US. We have coins up to 500 yen, and coins are easier to read. Also, some bill readers read basically any bill, and the train ticket machines even give change in bills. Hell, even drink machines will make change like a person--if a drink is 120 yen and you put in 520 yen, it gives you 4, 100-yen coins back. It has driven me crazy ever since I first came here like 10 years ago. Obviously the technology for vending machines not to suck exists; what's the deal with machines in the US?
So I'm the only one who read this and thought, "someone get this poor guy a girlfriend!"
One thing that struck me when I was in Tokyo were all the vending machines. Train stations, next to shops, street corners... All over the darn place. My first thought was that it must be nice to live in a place where people don't automatically break things as soon as the sun goes down. In America we can't have anything this nice. Few things are better than a hot can of sake or hot chocolate on the way home from the train station on a cold winters night.
I was also stunned when I noticed the lack of security bolt/screw heads on the walls and fixtures of bathrooms. Simply stunning. Don't these people know that if you turn you back for a second the public will unbolt everything and haul their loot to a pawn shop? I don't know what the street value of a bathroom stall wall partition is but if must be pretty darn high by the design of the security measures. Here in the US they must be worth their weight in gold or something.
However, while I was there the big news story was that burglars were taking the gates off form people driveways. They would sell them to scrap yards because they were made of aluminium. So it's not a total utopia but still... I miss those vending machines.
Actually, there have been a lot of break-ins of late. The most clever one is where they come in and very carefully take your bank cards (if they're in the house) and leave undetected. They then call the next day and say they are the bank and have noticed some strange behavior on your ATM card and ask if it has been stolen.
"No, it's in my drawer."
"I'm sorry, but could you check to make sure?"
"Oh my god! It's gone!"
"I was afraid of that. They probably took it without you even knowing. We've been getting a lot of these lately. But don't worry, we can just reset the PIN and send you a new card."
"Oh thank god."
"Alright, could you verify your name and address?"
"Blah blah blah."
"Great. And what would you like your new PIN to be?"
"1234."
"Fine. And to reset it, we need the old pin as well."
"4321."
"And we're done! We'll rush the card out today and you should have it by no later than the end of the week. You may also want to look into getting a better lock. As I said, there have been a lot of these lately."
"Thanks, and I will."
Even if you hang up the phone and suddenly realize that something was fishy and call your bank, you're probably already cleaned out because as soon as they have the information, they call it in to the guy who has your card and is standing at the ATM.
It's brilliant, in its way, but there are virtually no consumer protections here, and you lose everything. Even if the bank gets hacked, through no fault of your own, you lose. It's crazy.
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Vending machine otaku. Wow I have heard of everything. The name of his blog is "I take a picture of the vending machine every day (or so). I’m very sorry." So at least he knows he's a huge nerd.