heywood on 10/7/2024 at 12:54

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(https://apnews.com/article/ammunition-vending-machines-ddb2e507213cda8ef46da0d8146253ae) https://apnews.com/article/ammunition-vending-machines-ddb2e507213cda8ef46da0d8146253ae

A Texas company has introduced an ammunition vending machine for grocery stores, convenience stores, and the like.

Please don't make this a gun rights thread. I'm curious what other unusual, why-would-you-need-that kind of convenience-buying systems there are around the world.

I remember the first time I saw a drive-through liquor store. I was in Ohio and my friend took me on a beer run for a wedding after-party. As we sat in the car and watched them grab cases and throw them in the back, I wondered who decided they need this. I found them in Australia too. Supposedly the first drive through liquor store was opened in 1953 in Adelaide. The first in the US opened a couple years later in 1955. The central/midwest US is heavily German and has an unusual appreciation for cheap beer. So do a lot of Aussies in my experience.

I was a little confused the first time I went to a ramen shop in Japan and had to use a vending machine to buy a bowl. You have to go take a seat at the counter, wait for the server, and hand them the ticket anyway. So why not just tell the server what you want and skip the vending machine? It seems to be Japanese culture to use the assembly line as a model for making basic services like food and health care more efficient. But noodle vending machines seem like a superfluous addition.

Perhaps the strangest thing I saw in a vending machine was placenta masks, in Shanghai. What have you got?

Aja on 10/7/2024 at 15:47

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We don't really have a lot of automated vending here although at the airport you can buy big slices of cake from a machine.

SD on 10/7/2024 at 16:14

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There are the infamous used panty vending machines in Japan, of course.

I'm afraid I've not seen anything more exotic than food and drink here in the UK.

heywood on 10/7/2024 at 16:56

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We had a lot of them but they're mostly gone now where I live. Online banking and cashless transactions left a lot of unprofitable bank branches sitting on valuable real estate for commercial development.

Before interbank ATM networks, most US banks had branches with drive-up banking. As a kid, I remember thinking the pneumatic tube systems were pretty cool and wanted to know how they work.

I don't have much use for fast food drive-through either. It was huge here in the 80s and 90s, but it's on the decline in my part of the country except for Dunkin Donuts coffee, which I avoid.

heywood on 10/7/2024 at 17:30

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The three years I spent in Australia really pickled my liver, as did my years in Ohio, and some years in between. Now I try to be a moderate drinker and I periodically go on the wagon for a while when it starts to become a regular habit. I have family history of alcoholism and binged heavily when I was younger, so I need to be careful.



For CDN $11, I hope that comes out fresher than Hostess cakes.