Polynodal

Haunted Vending Machine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill's_mystery_soda_machine

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mystery-soda-machine

Inspired by the talk about Bananas and how that supply chain worked

Capitol Hill's mystery soda machine was a vending machine in Capitol Hill, Seattle

• Densely populated residential district just east of Seattle's downtown business district.
• known for counterculture communities and vibrant nightlife
  • home to some of the city's most prominent local coffeehouses. David Schomer's Espresso Vivace on Broadway credited as birthplace of artisanal coffee culture and latte art in Seattle (and thus the United States)
  • associated with the grunge scene from the early 1990s, although most of the best-known music venues of that era were actually located slightly outside the neighborhood
  • Also CHAZ and CHOP in 2020 Protests after the murder of George Floyd

in operation since at least the early 1990s until its disappearance in 2018.

It is unknown who stocked the machine

A drink could be chosen using one of the "? mystery ?" buttons and the dispensed drinks were rare cans that were either ordinarily unavailable in the United States or have not been in circulation since the 1980s.

It has been reported that Lemon-Lime Slice, Pepsi AM, bubblegum-flavored Hubba Bubba Soda, and the infamous Crystal Pepsi could be acquired from the machine — although I have no documented evidence

• Lemon-Lime Slice was replaced in the PepsiCo lineup by Sierra Mist in 2000
• Pepsi AM existed only briefly as a test between 1989 and 1990 and was removed from shelves after failing to take off
• Hubba Bubba Soda launched in 1987 before fading into obscurity by the 1990s
• Crystal Pepsi flopped spectacularly in the early 1990s.)

For much of the machine’s lifetime, the majority of its buttons — at least four of the six — dispensed specific sodas, with only one or two of the buttons bearing the “?MYSTERY?” label. For example, in October of 2002, The Stranger reported that five of the buttons at the time dispensed particular sodas — namely Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew, 7 Up, Barq’s Root Beer, and Pepsi — while just one offered the “?MYSTERY?” option. Photos taken during the summer and fall of 2009, however, show that by that point, only four of the buttons dispensed identifiable sodas — two spat out cans of Coke, one Mountain Dew, and one Pepsi — while the “?MYSTERY?” buttons had grown to two.

By 2014 all of the buttons were Mystery

Mystery

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kwpzxe/seattle-has-a-haunted-soda-machine

Not only was each button labeled Mystery, but the machine itself was shrouded in it.

2014 Interview with Vice, Mickey manager of Broadway Locksmith

Or, as our theory states, the soda emissary could be a restless, undead spirit able to transcend the laws of space-time in order to supply an endless assortment of carbonated drinks.

https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2018/07/the-bizarre-story-of-the-seattle-mystery-vending-machine/
Curiously, despite being targeted by countless vandals and irate customers over the years (the machine has a propensity to eat bills particularly, but also sometimes change), Seattle residents familiar with it note it’s almost never out of service and report that any time the machine is damaged, it is generally fixed within a day or so.

A common hypothesis is that the machine is owned and operated by the owners of Broadway Locksmith, which the machine is housed immediately outside of. Supporting this idea is the fact that the machine draws power from Broadway Locksmith and that the heavy padlock keeping it secure was seemingly bought from there. However, if Broadway Locksmith is responsible for stocking the machine, they have made a commendable effort to convince people otherwise. In addition to flatly denying that they have anything to do with it, both the owner of Broadway Locksmith and random employees have stuck to the exact same story over the years while being grilled by everyone from USA Today to Vice. They claim they don’t know who restocks the machine and that they’ve never seen anyone open it up to put something inside or collect the money it contains.

Now, at this point you may have found yourself thinking, “Okay, but surely the city knows who owns the machine because whoever owns it must have a permit or something, right?” Well, Jessica Lee of The Seattle Times had that exact same thought and reached out to city officials about the matter in an attempt to discern once and for all who actually owned the machine. According to Lee, a spokeswoman for the city eventually got back to her and explained that, for some reason, the city didn’t have any records pertaining to the machine in question.

Social Media proves it's not haunted

Pics captured and shared online of actual people stocking the machine
but not the
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2014/05/spoiler-alert-mystery-of-the-capitol-hill-mystery-coke-machines-mysteries-revealed/

In January 2018, the same month Seattle passed its sugary drink tax, the machine raised its price from its typical $0.75 to $1.00.

In June 2018, the machine mysteriously disappeared and a message was posted to the machine's Facebook page stating "Going for a walk, need to find myself. Maybe take a shower even." A note was taped to the rail where the machine used to be: "Went for a walk". During this time, its Facebook page featured photoshopped images of the soda machine in a forest and at Machu Picchu.

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/06/eyewitnesses-capitol-hills-mystery-soda-machine-has-disappeared/

https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/mystery-soda-machine-vanishes-from-seattles-capitol-hill/281-569658739

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cargo Cults

• in WW2, tons of troops have first contact with pre-industrial cultures.
• These cultures tend to, have a "big man" political system
  • sustenance farming, hunter-gatherer society, scarcity
  • if you're able to give more gifts and survive, you're more powerful
  • More power, creates more power
  • Can't reciprocate? "rubbish man"
• So what happens when thousands of men come who are able to toss a pack of gum or cigarets to everyone?
• but also the technology and manufacturing and materials
• religion forms mimicking the behaviours of the soldiers
  • march with sticks
  • coconut radios
  • leaf airplanes, stick runways, stone offices
• The John Frum cult, one of the most widely reported and longest-lived, formed on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. This movement started before the war, and became a cargo cult afterwards. Cult members worshiped certain unspecified Americans having the name "John Frum" or "Tom Navy" who they claimed had brought cargo to their island during World War II and whom they identified as being the spiritual entity who would provide cargo to them in the future

Some cargo cults are still active. These include:

• The John Frum cult on Tanna island (Vanuatu)
• The Tom Navy cult on Tanna island (Vanuatu)
• The Prince Philip Movement on the island of Tanna, which worshipped the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

According to ancient Yaohnanen tales, the son of a mountain spirit travelled over the seas to a distant land. There, he married a powerful woman and in time would return to them. He was sometimes said to be a brother to John Frum.[2]

The people of the Yaohnanen and Takel area believe in the divinity of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort to Queen Elizabeth II. They had seen the respect accorded to Queen Elizabeth II by the colonial officials and concluded that her husband, Prince Philip, must be the son referred to in their legends.

It is unclear just when this belief came about, but it was probably some time in the 1950s or 1960s. It was strengthened by the royal couple's official visit to Vanuatu in 1974, when a few villagers had the opportunity to actually see Prince Philip from a distance. The Prince was not then aware of the sect, but it was brought to his attention several years later by John Champion, the British Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides.

In April 2021 the sect mourned Prince Philip's death. Village Chief Albi said that he was "terribly, terribly sorry" that he died and tribal leader Chief Yapa sent his condolences to the Royal Family and the people of the UK.

Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist familiar with the group, said that after their period of mourning the group would probably transfer their veneration to Prince Charles, who had visited Vanuatu in 2018 and met with some of the tribal leaders.

It seems like if the technological advanced society had a guideline or rule or general order NOT to interfere in the with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations

The Prime Directive

• Starfleet General Order 1
• General Order 1
• non-interference directive

The Prime Directive US involvement in the Vietnam War was a superpower interfering in the natural development of southeast Asian society; the creation in the original series is attributed to a statement of such

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniel talked about a video to help pronounce "Diego Garcian" and it reminded me of this youtube channel

YouTube channel launched on April 14th, 2010 with a video instructing viewers how to pronounce ASUS. It continued for years with normal engilsh words, but also did names and brands like Baal, Tutankhamun, Ke$$ha.
Some videos gained more notariety, because of the subtle comedy or oddity. in 2012 * The video "How to pronounce GIF" followed the typical format, but substituted the phrase "GIF stands for graphics interchange format"
some surreal, like the correct pronounciation for the phrase "please help me escape from this place"

July 9th, 2013, Pronunciation Book departed from its regular programming with a video titled “How To Pronounce 77”. Instead of illustrating the correct pronunciation, the voiceover narrates that “something is going to happen in 77 days,” followed by 15 seconds of silence with soft clicks that could be interpreted as Morse code.
Next day the video was 76

The following days had a different pattern than previous videos:

1. Start with a cryptic sentence
2. State how many days until when something will happen

A cryptic narrative began to form through the intro sentence

caused internet buzz, the whole world wide web was spreading this series of videos in what I'd call an "explosive node" way.

Bear Stearns Bravo
On September 24th, 2013 Pronunciation Book released a new video titled "How to Pronounce Horse_ebooks," which contains a phonetic reading of the infamous Twitter spambot account @Horse_ebooks and a mysterious message narrated by a woman standing in front of a silver screen.

The same day as the Horse_ebooks reveal, the New Yorker revealed Thomas Bender, VP of product development at HowCast as the identity behind Pronunciation Guide and he was running the @Horse_ebooks Twitter account with BuzzFeed's creative director Jacob Bakkila. The two were staging an event to launch of their new alternate reality game project called "Bear Stearns Bravo."

Pronunciation Manual
On April 13th, 2011, the YouTube channel Pronunciation Manual launched, offering similar instructional videos. However, these videos intentionally mispronounce the words for comedic purposes. As of July 2013, the channel has inspired other copycat channels including PronunciationPartner and PronunciationPooper while amassing more than 213,000 subscribers and 68.4 million views, averaging 81,600 views per day.

horse_ebooks
Started basically as a spam bot, but a Russian web developer, But without the nefarious tactics.
Gained popularity as poetic
Twitter account that posted nonsense phrases from ebooks about horses, interspersed with spam links.

"I will make certain you never buy knives again,"
"We all agree, no one looks cool,"
"Is the dance floor calling? No,"
"Everything happens so much"
"unfortunately, as you probably already know, people."

Purchased in 2011 by Bakkila. This change was noticed by the account's followers when, on September 14, 2011, the account began tweeting "via web" instead of "via Horse ebooks", and the frequency of tweets promoting ClickBank significantly dropped while the number of "funny" tweets increased.

Alternate Reality Game (ARG)
interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions.

Among the terms essential to understanding discussions about ARGs are:

• Puppet-master – A puppet-master or "PM" is an individual involved in designing and/or running an ARG. Puppet-masters are simultaneously allies and adversaries to the player base, creating obstacles and providing resources for overcoming them in the course of telling the game's story. Puppet-masters generally remain behind the curtain while a game is running. The real identity of puppet masters may or may not be known ahead of time.
• The Curtain – The curtain, drawing from the phrase, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," is generally a metaphor for the separation between the puppetmasters and the players. This can take the traditional form of absolute secrecy regarding the puppetmasters' identities and involvement with the production, or refer merely to the convention that puppet-masters do not communicate directly with players through the game, interacting instead through the characters and the game's design.
• Rabbit-hole/Trailhead – A rabbit-hole, or trailhead, marks the first media artifact, be it a website, contact, or puzzle, that draws in players. Most ARGs employ a number of trailheads in several media to maximize the probability of people discovering the game. Typically, the rabbit-hole is a website, the most easily updated, cost-effective option.[4]
• This Is Not A Game (TINAG) – Setting the ARG form apart from other games is the This Is Not A Game sentiment popularized by the players themselves. It is the belief that "one of the main goals of the ARG is to deny and disguise the fact that it is even a game at all."

design principles

• Storytelling as archaeology. Instead of presenting a chronologically unified, coherent narrative, designers scatter pieces of the story across the Internet and other media, allowing players to reassemble it, supply connective tissue and determine what it means.
• Platformless narrative. Stories are not bound to a single medium, but exist independently and use whatever media is available to make itself heard.
  Designing for a hive mind. While it might be possible to follow games individually, designs are directed at a collective of players that share information and solutions almost instantly and incorporate individuals possessing almost every conceivable area of expertise. While games might initially attract a small group of participants, as the participants come across new challenges they try to find others with the knowledge needed to overcome an obstacle.
• A whisper is sometimes louder than a shout. Rather than openly promoting games and trying to attract participation by "pushing" it toward potential players, designers attempt to "pull" players to the story by engaging in over-the-top secrecy, have elements of the game "warn" players away from them, and eschew traditional marketing channels. Designers do not communicate about the game with players or press while it is in play.
• The "this is not a game" (TINAG) aesthetic. ARGs themselves do not acknowledge that they are games. They do not have an acknowledged ruleset for players; as in real life, they determine the "rules" either through trial and error or by setting their own boundaries. Narratives present a fully realized world: any phone number or the email address mentioned works, and any website acknowledged exists. Games take place in real time and are not replayable. Characters function like real people, not game pieces, respond authentically, and are controlled by real people, not by computer AI. Some events involve meetings or live phone calls between players and actors.
  Real life as a medium. Games use players' lives as a platform. Players are not required to build a character or role-play being someone other than themselves. They might unexpectedly overcome a challenge for the community simply because of the real-life knowledge and background they possessed. Participants are constantly on the lookout for clues embedded in everyday life.
  Collaborative storytelling. While the puppetmasters control most of the story, they incorporate player content and respond to players' actions, analysis and speculation by adapting the narrative and intentionally leave "white space" for the players to fill in.
  Not a hoax. While the TINAG aesthetic might seem on the surface to be an attempt to make something indistinguishable from real life, there are both subtle and overt metacommunications in place to reveal a game's framework and most of its boundaries.

Inspiration

• 1905 short story "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown" by G. K. Chesterton
  • (part of a collection entitled The Club of Queer Trades)
  • seems to predict the ARG concept
  • While investigating a case of assault brought by Major Brown, Rupert Grant, the private detective, and his brother Basil stumble upon the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited, an agency that creates adventures for its clients.
• John Fowles' 1965 novel The Magus.
  • young Oxford graduate
  • moves to greece to teach
  • gets dissolution, meets wealth recluse
  • gets drawn into Godgames
• science fiction novel Triton (Delaney) pub 1976 by
  • The combination board and card game, Vlet, that many of the main characters in play throughout his novel appears to be a type of ARG.
• Ludic texts (Ludology is game studies)
  • Choose Your Own Adventure children's novels
• Reader-influenced online fiction such as AOL's QuantumLink Serial provides a model that incorporates audience influence into the storytelling in a manner similar to that of ARGs, as do promotional online games like Wizards of the Coast's Webrunner games.
• Other break-the-fourth-wall actions in theater and performing art

The concept has had cultural touchstones throughout post-WWII pop culture.

• the Beatles' "Paul is dead" phenomenon.
• the 1997 movie The Game with Michael Douglas

Earliest examples of ARG include

• Webrunner: The Hidden Agenda to promote "Netrunner"
• Dreadnot
  • from SF Chronicle published at sfgate.com in 1996
  • The game included working voice mail phone numbers for characters, clues in the source code, character email addresses, off-site websites, real locations in San Francisco, real people (including then-Mayor Willie Brown), and of course a fictional mystery
• Marketing for the Blair Witch Project
  • expanding the world of the movie online, adding backstory, and treating the fiction as reality through real-world media such as fliers and a fake documentary on the Sci-Fi Channel.
  • However, due to the subject material & absence of overt metacommunications that this was fiction, so mor elike a internet hoax

Notable examples

• The Beast
  • marketing for Spielberg's AI Artificial Intelligence
  • an elaborate murder mystery played out across hundreds of websites, email messages, faxes, fake ads, and voicemail messages
  • dubbed "the Citizen Kane of online entertainment" by Internet Life,[19] was a runaway success
  • three million active participants[21] from all over the world during its run
  • An early asset list for the project contained 666 files, prompting the game's puppetmasters to dub it "the Beast"
• Portal 1
  • March 1 , 2010 game update
  • game update now includes 26 radios in the test chambers playing the same default tune that the original radios played
  • play Morse code which led to phone number
  • phone number was to a BBS
  • show the user ASCII art images and paragraphs quoting Cave Johnson
  • idle for 4 minutes, "Hey! Please login now. You have one minute left." and if left idle for one more minute the next text will say "Your login time (5 minutes) ran out. Goodbye" disconnecting the user.
  • Portal was updated at another time on two days later "Added valuable asset retrieval". The Portal 1 game ending was expanded to include Chell being dragged back into the facility by the Party Escort Bot saying "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position" creating the plot for the upcoming game Portal 2.
• I Love Bees
  • first advertised by a hidden message in a Halo 2 trailer
  • on the website discovered that the pages appeared to be hacked by a mysterious intelligence. As players solved puzzles, audio logs were posted to the ilovebees.com site which gradually revealed more of the fictional back-story
  • involving a marooned artificial intelligence stranded on Earth and its attempts to put itself back together.
• CBS made an ARG for Jericho to promote the series in 2007.
• 2016 TV show Mr. Robot, started with a phone number shown on a box in a video clip. Prizes were awarded to the first 509 solvers

Serious ARGs

if ARGs can spark players to solve very hard fictional problems, could the games be used to solve real-world problems?

• World Without Oil
  • using collective intelligence, puppetmasters acted as players to guide the "collective imagination" to create a multi-authored chronicle of the alternative future
• October 2008 The British Red Cross created a serious ARG called Traces of Hope to promote their campaign about civilians caught up in conflict
• European Union funded an ARG to support motivation for multilingualism within European secondary school students called ARGuing for Multilingual Motivation

Meow Wolf

House of Eternal Return

House of Eternal Return has a storyline based on the fictional Selig family, who disappeared after experimenting with interdimensional travel by tapping into a mysterious force known as "The Anomaly" in an effort to bring back deceased family members. This caused the house to fracture open paths to alternate dimensions. A secret government organization called the Charter was able to contain the Anomaly's effects and passes off the containment warehouse as an art installation.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• Do Canada geese still fly south for winter? Yes, but it's complicated - National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/do-canada-geese-still-fly-south-for-winter
• FAA Wildlife Strike Database - https://wildlife.faa.gov/search
• Interspecific Killing of a Branta bernicla (Brant) by a Male Branta canadensis (Canada Goose) - Northeastern Naturalist Vol. 19, No. 4 (2012) - https://www.jstor.org/stable/41810155
• Recent trends in the winter population of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) in Wichita, Kansas: 1998–2003  - Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science https://doi.org/10.1660/0022-8443(2004)107[0077:RTITWP]2.0.CO;2

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.