This is a long post people - so don't feel the need to read it or anything. If you do and you detect an element of, let's say... irrationality or bias, do let me know won't you :) And if you think as a research area, you have something to contribute... please do. I am still in the data gathering stage and yes... I do know that means I should not be using the word theory, and that even the word hypothesis should be thrown out and replaced with something more along the lines of raving... but bear with me if you can :)

Allow me to start with the sobering news that between 1978 and 1995, vending machines were more dangerous to us humans than sharks.

*sombre blink*

After the 37th death, it seems primary research in the area either dried up, or victims did.

So, that last outraged-human-who-was-just-trying-to-get-either-their-money-back-or-their-undelivered-chocolate-bar-out... but instead got squished ... was it as far back in time as 21 years ago, people? Maybe, yes. But if so, it was not because these machines became less dishonest and prone to disproportionate retaliation when under assault. No. It's because we chained them down, and/or bolted them up or onto other things.

Yes, people. We moored them. So I ask you...

Were we really that naïve? Did we really think that was all we had to do to keep ourselves safe as we allowed these things to proliferate and start dispensing stuff other than non-essential items?

*manually fold interesting angle into eyebrows*

Did we honestly think they would not retaliate, even when we sunk them into concrete?

Have we not seen a decline in our abilities to function without episodic rages and rants or humiliating public events performed and captured for posterity under the watchful eyes of CCTV camera's? Yes we have. So why did we allow *elevate nose for sudden emergency pegging* politicians and company chairmen and whatnot *flick eyes disparagingly about the place* who've never used one to dispense their chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce from, to decide that human backup is surplus to our lowly requirements?

*droop eyelids at anyone who even TRIES to say fiduciary duty at an anniet* :)

Are we really that stupid?

Well, people, I propose we are :) and in London, we really really are. Not only are we, but under the control of a mayor who struggles with light switches... ticket offices all over the public transport network have been boarded up and even painted over afterwards, leaving us blinking in astonishment at a blank wall, and wondering where the window was last time we were here. All done with the "sweetener" of a limited 24 hour service along unmanned and unwomanned underground routes that only the desperate or the insane would want to attempt.

Yeeeees.

So why am I here telling you this? I'm here telling you this because if you want to know how to have a personally disastrous day in the UK, it is now easier than ever to achieve :)

...and I'm the one to tell you how, in what is also a fully documented case study...

First:

How to prepare (an example): Receive a phonecall from the care home you rescued your mother from last year, and listen to them insist that a document they neglected to ask you to sign at the time, had not been signed and cannot be trusted to the postal system, for "data protection" reasons. Resign yourself to a two-and-a-half-hour journey there using the underground, then rail, and finally, a bus, and then back but in reverse order obviously, and try to see it as a "nice day out".

Remember to plan for the possibility you might want to tell people about it afterwards. Allow yourself ten days between these events, at least, in order to pull yourself together sufficiently to do so. This is very important. It could save you a period of being mistaken for someone who speaks in apocalypse-now tongues, or is an end-stage rabies victim, or weirdly disabled by eyes that suffer a major leak every time the mouth beneath them opens rendering them mysteriously unable to breathe and therefore enunciate anything of any meaning. This would be playing into the hands of the machine/machines that did this to you. Don't give them the satisfaction, nor allow the overlords that unleashed them at you, any justification to unleash more.

Now you're ready...

How to have your disastrous day:
Step 1:- En route to your nearest underground station, buy a mobile phone voucher vital for making the two essential phonecalls you need to make that morning. This is so you can be informed by a machine that a technical problem occurred; the voucher could not be credited to your account; and to please try again.

Do that :) because the 3 pence credit you have on it is not yours to use until there's a lot more added to it.

Step 2:- Get the same result, so turn your attention to topping up the balance on your "plastic smartcard which holds SNORT pay as you go credit SNORT for travelling in London with". (This is called an oyster card, people, and if you're doing this right, you should not, by rights, be having to top it up at all, because two days before - the last time you'd used it, it had had £15.60 on it at the start of a £1.60 journey. Except it doesn't now. It doesn't because it went collaboratively nuts with the machine you tried to tap out of the system with. This unholy collusion did tap you out, but also tapped you straight back in, then out and then back in again, midst a flurry of demented beeping, before declaring in nonchalant pus-green that you should *seek assistance* and refusing point blank thereafter, to allow you to tap out at all, even after walking to the next assistance-free station and trying to do so there. The person you finally found the following day, at a different station a 45 minute walk away, will have kindly cancelled your minus £17 balance inclusive of penalty charges for "not tapping out" but will only be able to restore £3 of the 14 that should have been on it, because "the machines now limit us in what we can do".) I could rest my whole point here, but I won't.

That you will now resent being in front of such a machine and again giving it more money goes without saying, but get over it if you can. This will allow you to read the message on its screen telling you your transaction could not be processed and to "seek assistance". Try to give it the benefit of doubt so that you can cling hopefully to the belief that there might be some... somewhere... and don't accept there really is none until you've spent several minutes bellowing "hello!!" at the ticket barriers and being given a wide berth by other commuters.

Then, go in search of a shop with an oyster card paypoint and cheer yourself up on the way with the thought that at least you'll be dealing with a human being. Listen to it tell you that your card has been invalidated for use, that a new one requires a deposit which does not count towards your fares, and you cannot get the deposit back on your old card for the same reason you couldn't use it... because it has been invalidated... and decide you are not accepting that. So request your card back with the intention to find someone... somewhere... someday... who might reinstate it for you or let you forcefeed it to them if they won't... and instead - ask to purchase a cardboard travelcard. Learn that this is no longer possible, and that you will have to buy it at the station... from a machine, so return to the station and enjoy the hail lashing you on the way because, although you may not yet know it... this will be the highpoint of your day.

Step 3:- Purchase cardboard travelcard that exorbitantly increased in price in January to nearly £13, from a machine that declares in bright red scrolling letters that it gives change until you put your £20 note in it. Take your ticket and no change and stomp down to the platform. Whilst waiting 31 minutes for a train that is supposed to come every ten minutes, try credit your phone again, with the same result as before. Out of sheer boredom, have one more unsuccessful go at it, before your packed tube train arrives. Ensure you stand all the way to your destination with your nose wedged in an armpit. Try to ensure it is someone else's armpit if you can because it's much more memorable.

Step 4:- Disembark at your interchange stop and walk to the adjacent rail station.

Head straight for the ticket office where you always miss at least one train whilst you're waiting to be served, and feel quite cheery to see there is no one in the queue. Assess the risks fellow perambulating humans in the vicinity may pose to you getting to it first, and slightly quicken your footsteps... but not to the point where you're committed to an inelegant jostling to enter the roped out area or a downright brawl at the window, people. No :) Ensure your approach is at such an angle, that your first view of the window is as you enter the queue for it, but at this point start digging about for the money that will need to change hands at the counter, and only again look up when you're there. Do all this when the ticket office is closed.

Take however many blinks you need to absorb the meaning of the word closed, before turning to look for a human to talk to. There will be a small man in a booth at the most distant ticket barrier. Go and explain to him that whilst your travelcard will get you through his barriers, it won't get you all the way to your destination. Listen to him tell you you need to buy a ticket extension from a machine. Thank him and do that. Except don't. Discover instead, that this is beyond your abilities so go back and ask him to show you how. Discover it is beyond his abilities too because your destination is not in the list, despite a train going there having just left from platform four. Watch while he tries again and carry on watching while he goes to a different machine and tries that instead. Make sure you are not learning anything, and just getting more confused as he finds an option that looks right. Now put your money in the machine. Collect your change with absurd delight and your wrong tickets with much less enthusiasm.

Listen to the man tell you the only way they can be refunded/exchanged is at a ticket office - for a fee. Note with some relief that in response to your bald "but it's closed" he will inform you it is due to reopen in 15 minutes.

Whilst you wait, try again to credit your phone. Do this because your important calls needed to be made five minutes ago. Make sure you get the same result as before.

Step 5:- Go in search of a working phone box with a minimum call charge of £1 and make call. Listen to an automated message tell you the person is unable to take your call and would you like to send a text alert instead. Choose yes and immediately get cut off.

Wait for your money not to be returned, and decide to ring home and ask someone there to make the calls you need for you, but dial the number of your local Chinese take away instead. Now lose another three pounds in the machine before realising that the only part of the booth that actually delivers on its promises is the door, and taking your money.

On your way back to the ticket office, which must still be closed, try credit your phone voucher again and learn you cannot credit your phone more than fives times in a day. Remember that you have not actually done so once and then get a teensy bit aggrieved when the message also informs you that the voucher is now invalid. £10 worth of invalid.

Clutch hopefully to the bit that tells you to ring customer service if this is a problem - and do that, because it is. Then listen to a machine tell you that they are experiencing a major technical fault and to please call back tomorrow. Now start waiting 67 further minutes for the ticket office to actually open.

When it does, get your money back less the fee for cancelling the wrong ticket, and pay for a return ticket extension to your destination with seconds to spare before the next train.

Step 6:- or how to discover how truly disastrous the day you are having actually is...

Manage to just catch train full of people humping large suitcases around the network. Then, at next stop - fling yourself in front of the closing doors to protect a family (each with their own large suitcase) from being separated by them. This will allow you to feel like you at least have a good deed to show for your day, hurt your shoulder and back, get your foot run over by a sweet and very grateful little Spanish granny's suitcase and not get the option of a seat until Luton Airport... which will be the stop just after a ticket inspector will get on.

Make sure you confidently hand him your tickets.

This will maximise your shock as you wait for him to issue you with your £80 fine for travelling on them. Listen to him tell you you can appeal within 28 days but that the fine will double after that, and if you're unsuccessful. Also listen to him tell you that you should have checked your tickets before leaving the ticket office. He will be right... because if you had you would have realised the ticket office you spent nearly two hours waiting to open, reissued you with the same wrong tickets you'd paid a fee for cancelling. This will take long enough for the train to empty then refill with a whole new audience of onlookers, so you cannot sit down. So pretend you have enough credit on your phone to send people you can't send texts to, some texts, so no one can see that you're crying. Then, because you only have cash and the ticket inspector couldn't accept it, for you to pay for the ticket you should have been travelling on, accompany the security guard waiting for you at your destination to a ticket machine to purchase it from there. This will leave you with insufficient funds to catch one bus, let alone two, so walk to the care home. Try to do it in under an hour if you can because it will be pouring with rain.

When you get there, listen to a lady tell you that the person you need to see doesn't work Thursdays. I recommend shooting her with your eyes. Yes, people. I do, but that's just me, then explaining to her that no one mentioned that to you when you discussed, on Tuesday, your coming on Thursday. Listen to her point out that that is not her fault and that the paper you need to sign is locked in a filing cabinet she doesn't have the key to. At this point, you have a number of options available to you. Remember, you will have ample opportunity to roar as much as you like in the storm outside whilst trudging along roads that in large sections, have never seen the sophistication of a pavement.

Whether you're in any fit state to select to do that instead of any other options will rapidly become evident when the woman tags onto the end of her sentence, the words "we take data protection very seriously here"

If, like me, you hear yourself saying very slowly and very clearly "Then I'll sign the filing cabinet" while making erratic piles out of your belongings on her counter in order to excavate them for a pen, don't be surprised if she asks you to leave.

[/case study]

I have never been asked to leave anywhere ever. Nor have I ever used, or expected to use, the collection of words I did when I mentioned her wretched cabinet. This I attribute to machine-reach.

So, people... by making vending machines more sophisticated, are they out to get us... or just me? And is this a grudge match for us chaining their ancestors?

:)

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oh...and did we say we like humans too? Well we do :)

are they out to get us... or just me?

Just you!

:):)



edit:
I have seen this sort of thing before, it's never the machine!

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are they out to get us... or just me?

if user$ == "annie" then make(miserable);

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Awwwwwwwwww...

I obviously misjudged you all :)

I'd been putting off coming here because, quite frankly, I suspected someone would spam the thread with pictures of them.

But you haven't.

Thank you! :)

or are they out to get us... or just me?

Just you!

Not sure I can base a theory on just me, Ian :/

No.

So I went looking and found this:



Substitute *crane* with vending machine, and attribute his leg pain to a minor assault on an eight hundred pound ball dispenser, like a kick for instance... and...

Yes... it looks like a cover up to me, too.

if user$ == "annie" then make(miserable);

Thank you for letting me know. So even though I have never been to America, your machines have been sharing this... protocol amongst one another?

*turn to droop frosty eyelids at MI5*

I see why no one else has spoken up...

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oh...and did we say we like humans too? Well we do :)

can i get the short version on the whole thing by any chance ?

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I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

can i get the short version on the whole thing by any chance ?

:)

There was a bad day.

Is that short enough? :)

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oh...and did we say we like humans too? Well we do :)

if user$ == "annie" then make(miserable);

Thank you for letting me know. So even though I have never been to America, your machines have been sharing this... protocol amongst one another?

*turn to droop frosty eyelids at MI5*

Open source software, check it before you compile ... ;-)

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I've been having leg pains in My left knee joint, why?

I think it was caused by Me over walking, maybe, while I was having work done on My car's new front struts being installed, I've yet to get the rear struts installed though.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Were we really that naïve? Did we really think that was all we had to do to keep ourselves safe as we allowed these things to proliferate and start dispensing stuff other than non-essential items?

I'm sorry, but I simply couldn't get past the idea that ANYBODY on the planet would find an Almond Joy to be "non-essential".

Wishing you a better day tomorrow, my friend.

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Were we really that naïve? Did we really think that was all we had to do to keep ourselves safe as we allowed these things to proliferate and start dispensing stuff other than non-essential items?

I'm sorry, but I simply couldn't get past the idea that ANYBODY on the planet would find an Almond Joy to be "non-essential".

Wishing you a better day tomorrow, my friend.

I prefer "Mounds" better. Plus they are better for the environment. Less water was used to it. Almond trees are extremely water extensive to maintain.

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Sometimes i should keep my mouth shut.
OTOH i always have the feeling to tell the truth.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I'm sorry, but I simply couldn't get past the idea that ANYBODY on the planet would find an Almond Joy to be "non-essential".

I'm allergic to almonds (among a few other things), so ... non-essential it definitely is! ;)

(Not that they're available in my neck of the woods, anyway...)

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Almond trees are extremely water extensive to maintain.

http://www.almonds.com/get-facts-about-almonds-and-water

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Completing the transaction and not printing the ticket? ✔

Not putting the money in the machine "fast" enough, thereby it cancels the transaction, without returning the money you put in? ✔

Not being able to verify a ten quid note, followed by to different fivers, with the last fiver not being returned? ✔

Putting money in the machine and it not registering the income? ✔

THE RAGE!!!!!!!!!

PS I would like to join the Annies rage against the machine club :)

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

Sometimes i should keep my mouth shut.
OTOH i always have the feeling to tell the truth.

You are a very good man Mike. Your Mum will be very proud that you always tell the truth.

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Were we really that naïve? Did we really think that was all we had to do to keep ourselves safe as we allowed these things to proliferate and start dispensing stuff other than non-essential items?

I'm sorry, but I simply couldn't get past the idea that ANYBODY on the planet would find an Almond Joy to be "non-essential".

Wishing you a better day tomorrow, my friend.

I prefer "Mounds" better. Plus they are better for the environment. Less water was used to it. Almond trees are extremely water extensive to maintain.

I also prefer Mounds. Which is not to say I never feel like a nut. I just very seldom feel like eating a nut. Even cashews* and peanuts* are not as popular with my palate as they used to be (other than in the form of peanut butter).

* Yes, I know cashews are technically drupes.

* After reading the above *, do you really think I don't also know that peanuts are technically legumes?

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Were we really that naïve? Did we really think that was all we had to do to keep ourselves safe as we allowed these things to proliferate and start dispensing stuff other than non-essential items?

I'm sorry, but I simply couldn't get past the idea that ANYBODY on the planet would find an Almond Joy to be "non-essential".

Wishing you a better day tomorrow, my friend.

I prefer "Mounds" better. Plus they are better for the environment. Less water was used to it. Almond trees are extremely water extensive to maintain.

I also prefer Mounds. Which is not to say I never feel like a nut. I just very seldom feel like eating a nut. Even cashews* and peanuts* are not as popular with my palate as they used to be (other than in the form of peanut butter).

* Yes, I know cashews are technically drupes.

* After reading the above *, do you really think I don't also know that peanuts are technically legumes?

Now you got that old ad playing in My head. LOL

I like both, My brother would buy some for US, usually one or the other.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

There is an undercover British Telecoms engineer in a plain-clothes van attempting to blend into the pavement in front of the street cabinet outside my house.

Or that is what he wants me to think. *fling eyes at blue lights on broadband thingy* Yes, people. They're still on, and I'm still here. Which suggests he's nothing of the kind.

*pause to catch up on thread*

I have been considering your too-late-to-have-been-any-use-to-me-advice, Gary. Thank you for that, and wondered whether to restrict this post to discussing Vic's left knee... I trust it's recovering by the way? :) ...but have decided not to.

*look at wat u lukin at -* thank you :) yes... I was quite sorry about it too, and this coming Wednesday, I get to do it all over again. I'd like to think I'll get to sign a piece of paper this time.

Sometimes i should keep my mouth shut.

More good advice there... again, too late... thank you, Mike :)

My mum appreciates honesty up to a point, Monday. Today's point was pointing out she was drinking a cup of coffee, not a particularly disgusting cup of tea.

*contemplate Angela with mounting respect*

I take it you're fond of cheeto's too.



:)

Like John, I have never encountered almond joys nor the Admiral's mounds for that matter, so my head tried substituting walnut whips instead. Except they stopped being essential when they stopped making the coffee version around about the same time I came across a maggot-vending machine in Essex. Yes... the English do take their snacks seriously. Connected? Maybe. Who I can blame for that I've yet to find out. I will, one day, but having seen what one can do when launched at speed, nut first... walnut whips, people. not maggots... I wouldn't trust a vending machine to eject one at me, whatever flavour . No I wouldn't.

You are clearly a determined individual, Angela :)


*nod sympathetically at dimly lit lightbulb* You'll be pleased to know we're not alone...



Thank you David for your tour of everything nuts. It is greatly appreciated.

:)

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oh...and did we say we like humans too? Well we do :)

I now wait with bated breath for the first
stories about the creative assaults to be
committed against the weed dispensing machines
here in Canada. Just think, at $8.oo a gram
the sort of mischief some may get up too...

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Like John, I have never encountered almond joys nor the Admiral's mounds for that matter

Thank you David for your tour of everything nuts. It is greatly appreciated.

:)

Quick precis on the above items: both Almond Joy and Mounds start with an oblong patty of coconut. Almost Joy has a whole almond placed on top and is then completely covered with milk chocolate. Mounds is not topped with anything and is completely covered with dark chocolate. How dark? Not all that much, but darker than the other. Either way, a standard size package has two of these lumps. A "fun size" (like one would hand out for Halloween) has one. A King Size has three.

You're quite welcome.

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David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.