Slashdot Mirror
The Traveling Salesman Problem Meets Starbucks
Call Me Black Cloud writes "John 'Winter' Smith, a contract computer programmer, is living the traveling salesman problem. His personal quest is to visit every company-owned Starbucks and he's not doing too badly. After 7 years he's hit over 4,000 locations in the United States and 167 in Britain and Japan. What motivates him? That's one for the professionals to answer, but since Starbucks opens an average of 10 stores per week it doesn't look like Winter will be stopping any time soon. His website offers insight into why he does this ('to be different') and has pictures of the 4000+ Starbucks he's visited."
Before Slashdot = 60,293 visitors since December 2003.
After Slashdot today = 90,000+ (estimated)? Any takers?
One of the great unanswered questions.
Starbuks travels way to fast for my taste already. I want my Coffee Connection corner shop back!!
10 * 52 * 100
in 2104 we'll have over, what, 58-60,000 starbucks?
YES!
Casual Games/Downloads
Visit every McDonalds? Install every Linux distribution? So many possibilities.
...then we can follow his lead a la ant algorithms.
The Army reading list
Just wondering if he's been keeping track of the health effects of going to Starbuck's so offten...
Among the paramedics at work they are known as Fourbucks, on acount of their prices. ;P
I didn't think that Starbucks had any franchises, I thought they were all company-owned (at least in the US and Canada)
he would have written a computer program to keep track of all the starbucks, and visit them in the chronological order that they were opened, and have that program keep track of all the messy details of any that closed or moved, etc.
(yes, a douglas adams reference to the infinitely prolongued guy who insulted the universe in alphabetical order)
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Visiting every starbucks to be different is like visiting every taxidermist's shop because it's the cool thing to do and all the kids are doing it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does this guy have some strange desire to get ulcers?
What, another Starbucks story on the front page? Man, these guys are getting more exposure than SCO on Slashdot lately.
Wouldn't want to mention this:
I'm scheduled for a short interview on CNN Headline News Thusday, July 8, at approximately 7:45 PM EDT.
Gotta love that Headline News. Ever since the merger they avoid any type of real news like the plague. And the average age of the news presenters is, what, 13?
Casual Games/Downloads
Well, the site is holding up quite well for now. The web counter says 60664 hits, and it's 16.55 (GMT+1). The time on this posting should tell you in your time zone.
How high can it go?
That's what we really want to know.
I was under the impression that the traveling salesman problem had to do with finding the most efficient (i.e. shortest) route to traverse a *finite* amount of points...how is this the same?
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
an absolute, nailed on "please let me bear your children" hit with the ladies.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Let's see... 4000 stores, multiplied by an average of $8 per cup of coffee, comes to what?
What's really important, though, is how many Starbucks he has seen across the street from another Starbucks.
You know, finding the shortest route to hit all nodes by traveling along weighted edges in a finite graph?
What motivates him?
Caffeine, obviously.
One could "be different" is ways far less absolutely stupid. Take the money being spent on airfare, and open a homeless kitchen - that would be different, right?
Hopefully, eventually, we'll (as a group) stop thinking crap like this is cool. Its a blatant waste of natural and economic resources, and there are far better things to entertain ones self with than freaking coffee. Make a name by contributing to some breakthrough OSS project...volunteer with Habitat for Humanity...something. I have to breathe this damn dirty air too, you know - your rediculous quest does affect me.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
"What's the point?!?!?!"
Said the guy registerring his disgust throughout the internet.
"Derp de derp."
This guy may think he's purpose in life is unattainable, but he's got nothing on Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
Assuming he bought a frappucino one during each visit, let's see:
4,000 visits x $23.50 for one Starbucks brand frappucino = $58,000 spent
Some people have expensive hobbies...
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Golfing Mongolia: A 2.3-Million-Yard Par 11,880 (free NYTimes reg. required)
Although not as unique, going to ALL Hooters locations (and getting pics w/the Hooties) is far more fun - IMO.
His website seems to be holding up rather well, but his pictures are no longer displaying.. seems like he hosts them at http://home.flash.net/~ral1/starbucks/bigimages/ with file names looking like DSCNxxxx.jpg -- which begs the question, he knows which location is what when he gets around to updating the webpage (unless that's 20 seconds after he gets in the car). And on cost, if he must by caffinated coffee in each, let's just say that's $2.50 per cup * 4200 stores / 7 years: $1500 year. Isn't too outrageous.
Visiting every Starbucks is like visiting every Burger King.
The question is: Does this guy REALLY need more coffee??
I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
PROJECT: DENNY'S
THE MISSION: To visit every Denny's restaurant in the world (or at least as many as possible), getting lots of free stuff along the way.
THE VEHICLE: Das Büs, the Infamous Love Den of Steel. Tho', as it is currently "on sabbatical", Der Satürn will take its place.
Here in Portland, we firebomb new Starbucks facilities. Fuck you and your corporate coffee. Quit Walmarting the good old coffee shops out of existence.
They've just opened another one across the street from the tiny espresso shack I love to frequent in the mornings. If she ends up going under because of it, I think I might get in the mood for a little firebombing myself...
This is the Over-Caffienated Idiot Problem.
Something we may never have a formal proof of unless will develop an entirely new branch of mathematics.
is actually somewhat interesting. The original logo is (in my opinion) better than the one they use for the rest of the country. It's basically a naked mermaid. Now all you see in their logo is her face. The original logo is also brown, not green. I visited Seattle a few months, and personally I think they should have stuck with the old stuff (then again, it kinda makes them look like UPS).
Moderation Insight
"('to be different')"
If this is truly all he can muster the human race is indeed to be pitied.
Perhaps it would be better if he wore a Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt while traveling...
This guy reminds me of Fry from Futurama in the episode where he kept drinking coffee. I wonder if this guy shakes when he is flying over the ocean because the soda doesn't have enough caffeine?
Either way, its not good when you can be compared to a character on a tv show who is an idiot.
Oh wait ... a handful of /.ers are now doing this!!!
This man has inspired me. I shall now visit every H&R Block in the country!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
While the traditionl travelling salesman problem is NPC and anyone who has taken a proper CS track will have heard of it and studied it to death, are there any proofs, algorithims for it when the graph is adding new nodes?
/. and gett 12.50 an hour)
The biggest thing wrong right now is that when you add a new Vertex to the graph it could change the shortest path between two other verticies.
Damn I knew I shouldn't have picked up the coffee of the day on my lunch break.(Right now my job is testing the wireless network in several areas so I am wandering around with a laptop surfing
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Actually, getting two in one day shouldn't be too hard since most of them are across the street from each other.
Deal! This One Time Only, Mention SCO, Get +1
Then he wouldn't be making the dumb trip for bad coffee.
Live forever, or die trying.
Presumably his camera has some serious jitter correction built in...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I've got a Starbucks withing a block of me, maybe I'll buy whatever he's peddling.
Also, the name he goes by is simply "Winter". The only reason he has the "John Smith" in his name is because too many things (like the DMV) break when presented with a single name.
He is also a fairly good tournament Scrabble player. Because the National Scrabble Association's database can't handle single names either, he's registered as "Winter ZXQKJ".
hahaha 0wn3d.
Kind of like the old argument: "Your bitchin is driving me up the friggin wall!" "Well, what are you doin right now?"
What a sad indictment of society that people have some desperate need to be different and decide that the best way to satisfy that urge is to do something completely pointless like purchase products at every store of a multinational conglomerate. How exactly is becoming a complete and utter corporate slave a demonstration of how unique you are? I'd be much more impressed if this guy was attempting to visit every NON-Starbucks coffee shop. But that wouldn't garner him headlines, would it?
Let's face it: this guy doesn't want to be different, he wants to be famous, in his own pathetic way. You want to be different? How about volunteering for your local chapter of the non-profit organization of your choice? Not too many people do that. If that's not different enough for you, how about starting your own non-profit organization? Even fewer people do that. Hell, as long as you have this need to show everyone how different you are, might as well make it something that can benefit someone other than Starbuck's shareholders. Of course, none of these causes would get him a mention on slashdot, or the evening news, or anything else.
Call me a party-poorer but when I see stories about people following such pathetic attempts at gaining recognition, it makes me want to retch.
GMD
watch this
Arch-ranter Lewis Black has a funny bit about finding a "Starbucks across from a Starbucks" and he declares that to be the end of the universe. They're in Houston, Texas. Also shown in a composite photograph on another website.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
This chap is a freak, nuff said.
NEXT >
I can't think of a more retarded way to waste your precious time.
Everyone needs a hobby...I guess.
You mean a benefactor like... STARBUCKS??? I am certain that they have at least considered sponsoring this guy under the table, just because of the publicity he's getting for them.
stuff |
....the freaking McDonald's of the Coffee world.
I can say this because i grew up in the PacNW, dammit!!
There are FAR better places to get coffees than Starbucks, without the pretentious attitude and self-illuministic trumpeting (Go Dutch Bros.!!), but unfortunately it is Starbucks that seems to spread all over, along with the attitude. What is in the syrup that makes people suddenly an Espresso Afficianado after their 3rd visit to Starbucks?
do() || do_not();
I'm no psychologist, but I do wonder why people are driven to collect things, and, very often, they are driven to the point of mental illness. For example, people went nuts over those McDonalds Beanie Babies a while ago. Trash cans were filled with Happy Meals discarded uneaten, because people wanted only that 15-cent imported toy. Visiting every Starbucks is no different, where a person spends personal resources just playing catch-up to someone else's marketing scheme. I wish people were more resistent to this "collector's disease."
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I am paying $1.62 for a grande.
Is this a test sir?
Anything you order is free sir. Don't worry, it's clean sir.
Your sure this isn't a test, sir? You were in here last Tuesday, standing right where you are now. You asked, "how good is security?" It's excellent sir, tight as a drum.
You said if anyone came asking, we'd have to mod him down, even you. This is a powerful gesture, sir.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
If he could generate enough finite improbability, he could simultaneously appear in every Starbucks in the universe, and accomplish his goal.
He just needs a cup of really hot tea for his atomic vector plotter. Does Starbucks serve tea?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Did anyone read what his hit counter said when the article was first posted?
/. effect in RealTime!
I saw it at 64105 at 11:21 CST.
I hit reload and it's up over 65K now.
Watching the
do() || do_not();
Did anyone else do the math?
He's visited over 4000 locations in 7 years. That works out to about 11 locations a week.
Starbucks is opening an average of 10 stores a week.
The guy is doomed if he doesn't really pick up the pace.
True, it's not the Travelling Salesman problem, but it is interesting. In the beginning, the challenge is to drink at every Starbucks in town and then move to the next town. But as you begin to succeed, the appearance of new stores insures that the average Starbucks density, worldwide, grows smaller. So small that, at some point, it may be impossible to traverse in one week all the new Starbucks that are being built in that week. Unless, of course, they are all built in the same town. And then you can declare a victory and go back to more meaningful pursuits such as sky diving or trainspotting.
We thank you for your confession of intent to firebomb. We will send a representative shortly to your residence to collect you.
Department of Homeland Security
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
...Back in the day. We had this guy who worked there, crazy about starbucks. He invited Winter to our store(after we opened), and told him that there would be a big party for him when he came. About a year later, when the crazy guy(Jacob) had been separated from the company, Winter came to the store, and said, "Where's the balloons? Jacob said there'd be balloons." So he checked out our place, did his thing...
Lately, starbucks released a statement saying that they're flattered by this, but other than that, they don't give him much...
'sisyphean'.
("an average of 10 new stores are opened per week")
Much better coffee than starbucks, at least the regular stuff, I don't care for flavored coffee.
I can understand this.
I, myself, have a desire to visit every McDonalds on the face fo the planet.
But first I have to buy a bulldozer, and a cargo plane to carry it between continents...
Zen is everywhere. It's in a commune, it's in a boardroom, it's in what you flush down the toilet.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
"Starbucks of Topeka, Kansas? Starbucks #2046 of Topeka, Kansas?
"Err... Yes"
"You're a jerk, Starbucks. A real kneebiter."
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
and by this I mean "Visit every location of store X," why not make it more meaningful, like visit all of the Brothels in Las Vegas?
This guy should have set up some kind of pay-per-impression advertising before making slashdot, in any case..
He is a a contract computer programmer and I guess looking out for jobs and he posts his resume on his (very stable .. no /.ing yet !!)site as a DOC file ??? Common this isnt a medical convention where people appreciate docs. The last ver of Word I used (maybe 2000) had a save as html option. Atleast a 10 mb html ( u know with all the extra MS tags and crap) file would be better than a doc if u really want people to read your stuff.
I don't know the secret to happiness and I'll bet you don't either. Maybe this guy's found his own. I'm happy for him, anyway. :)
Oh, to have mod points today...
These people are obviously using some strange meanings of these words that I've been completely unaware of until now.
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Has America run out of INTERESTING things to do?
I think it was Whirlpool who made a middle of the road washer and dryer set. They didn't sell very well, so they upped the price over 1 grand each and they sold like crazy.
I think this is the same phenomenon we are seeing with Starbucks coffee, and the proliferation of legion's of coffee related drinks ending with chino or latte.
So technically StarBucks does not own them. I wonder if he went to the Starbucks across from the StarBucks that Lewis Black talked about in his show.
"After about four stores, the coffee loses all taste," says Winter, who's unconcerned about any long-term effects of so much coffee. "It doesn't taste good at all--I'm not enjoying drinking it. After an extreme number of stores, I have to wash out the taste with water after every sip because it's starting to make me sick."
He's acting just like a drug addict but in his case his drug of choice just happens to be legal. He sleeps in his car in parking lots, he zips from dealer to dealer all day long in order to get his next fix which he doesn't even enjoy and he works just enough to support his habit. Yup, sounds like druggie behavior to me (i.e. "gotta go work more so I can make more money to buy more drugs so I can work more and make more money to buy drugs so I can work more", etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum).
The thing that stuns me is that he has a girlfriend that's dated him online for six months! What the hell must be her damage and what the hell is wrong with him that he'd rather keep visiting these sterile shops peddling their mediocre coffee than spend time with her?! This man needs an intervention to help him get his priorities in order.
I tried to dial REALITY once and I was informed that it had been disconnected.
...that the Starbucks on Englands Lane, Belsize Park, London featuring in his photos used to be a nice pub.
Now that would a much more sensible and understandable challenge, have a drink in every pub...
Well, he has had 7 years
2555 days
Thats an average of 1.5655577299412915851272015655577 starbucks per day.
Opening 10 per week, and he is hitting 10.958904109589041095890410958899 per week.
They have 8000 stores now.
I calculate about 13 more years, and he should be able to enter maintenance.
Therefore, he is ahead of the curve.
Subject says it all...
While most programmers handle their addiction by finding the closest coffee shop to fuel their addiction, this programmer has a bug and seems to think that once a coffee shop(starbucks) is visited it cannot be visited again. Aside from the traveling salesman issue here, this guy has broken an important rule of any good programmer...TO GET STUFF DONE IN THE SIMPLIEST, EASIEST WAY POSSIBLE (Translation, LAZINESS)
To each his own
Nut
Here you have a travelling salesman who is trying to execute the algorithm manually! Like by actually walking it! He's one who won't put up with dumb comments like "well, when I was your age, we had to run our algorithms on punchcards; did you ever see a punchcard, kid?" or "Real men program in assembler". No, as this brave man proves it, real men program the real world! The real world rulez! Feet are the ultimate CPU: they MOV, they MULL, they ADD(uct), they DIVe, and can actually perform several of those instructions in parallel. Feet are a standard and every man, woman, and child come equipped with a dual-proc rig that delivers exceptional real-world performance. Not only that, but a multitude of software packages, created by the F/OSS (Foot Operating System Software) project, distributed under the GPL (Going Places License). Many games can be played on it, like Soccer, Foot(c)ball, Twister, and the ever popular Naked Twister. More mundane applications, like the travelling salesman problem, can be solved in finite time, as demonstrated by our Starbucks traveller, and many annoying Avon representatives.
I spent a while surfing his site which suprisingly wasn't /.'d into oblivion. After about 5 minutes I was convinced the guy is brilliant.
This is an amazing and important piece of work. The sheer volume of pictures, the sheer enormity of this effort is so impressive that I think this has to go down as one of those pieces of art/documentary/social commentary/lark that if it's preserved, people will look back on in 50 or 100 years (maybe less , maybe more) and just find terribly facinating.
First of all, just the pictures of all the architecture of locations in all 50 states alone is amazing. It's absolutely insane once you realize how much revenue and commerce Starbucks generates (all politics and love and hate of the company aside, it's just amazing when you see them all in one web site). Thes buildings had to be constructure, outfitted, opened, etc. The record of all these buildings, all these locations is like a mini snapshot of the whole U.S. from coast to coast and then world wide as well. It's an amazing piece of compare and contrast, and an amazing document.
Coming at it from the other side, I think the guy is a great artist also. This definitely qualifies as art in my mind, bordering on journalism, bordering on madness which is where a lot of great art comes from. Think of how many stories each state/city/area of a city/district tell about this experience, picture him going from store to store documenting this, etc. It's an endless story, he could write a book about it. Others have mentioned on here how comedians like Lewis Black have also seized on the sheer crazyness of the Starbucks phenomenon. Artists bring these issues into focus for people and the number of people critizing him here make me feel even stronger about the fact that he's doing something cool.
Winter is alright in my book. I don't think he's ruining the environment by travelling , I don't think he's a nut and don't think it's a waste of time. It's actually quite an important piece of work. Congratulations man.
This might be offtopic but ... A friend of mine said that the "baristas" at Starbucks create the "unique" taste of coffee, by roasting the beans longer than average. I recently bought a regular non-flavored coffee there, and was able to confirm that they do, in fact, burn their coffee. Maybe this is something true connoisseurs appreciate, but as far as I'm concerned it's "burning". Call it "dark roasting" call it a "feature enhancement".
Then again, what do I know...I put cream and sugar in my coffee.
"We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks. We saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other."
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
He sounds like he'd get on very well with Dave Gorman, who, after a drunken bet, made it his goal to find 52 other people named Dave Gorman, and also got a bit obsessed with Googlewhacking.
Also Danny Wallace who after having bet Dave Gorman to find 52 Dave Gorman's got it into his head that he needed 1000 people to join him , without actually knowing what they were joining (there are now over 8000 joinees).
And then of course there is the inimitable Tony Hawks (not Tony Hawk) who needed to win a bet that he could hitch-hike around the entire coast of Ireland with a refridgerator.
All of their books are highly recommended (especially Join Me, which is the funniest book I've ever read.
It has to be in the teens, this guy is an uber geek.
Okay ...
...
/. standards slipping? :)
Is this supposed to be some kind of update?
'Cause I swear I've seen this here before.
If not here
This is certainly not a "new" story.
Are
Cheers,
--The Dude
It's tough for most cafes in Canada, because Canadians seem to prefer Tim Hortons. For comparison, I live in Truro, which is a medium sized town, and there are seven Tim Hortons here.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This line is especially precious: "I think what he's doing is great--very admirable," says Jodi Morgan, a 27-year-old who has been in an online relationship with Winter since January. " Nothing says winner like admiration from your "online relationship"
I grew up in the United States. What is this "real news" you speak of?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I would rather see him visting places where they have placed starbucks on top of other starbucks.
I am still trying to figure out why this was posted to Slashdot. I guess we can expect a story in the near future about how some guy is trying to masturbate in every store of some huge adult novelty chain.
I do not want to hear or read about this crap!
...include the words "programmer" and "coffee" in an article and it MUST tech-related. C'mon, it must be a slow news day.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
He'll be finished when he stops in the Starbucks that happens to be Dr. Evil's lair.
Then he'll be finished. *pinky to corner of mouth* MUAHAHAHA! MUAHAHAHAHA! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! MUAHAHAHA! (*keep laughing until scene fade out*)
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
he is not a genious, he once flooded an entire floor of an apartment complex by hanging his shirt on a sprinkler head and then breaking it some how.
... he once had to be told to remove the hundreds of Starbucks cups from his cubicle.
... he only owns 3 shirts (at least as much as I can tell) Look at the pictures.
... he sometimes went by the name John, at least when some code was checked into the repository. Maybe this was before he legally changed his name.
... he was a strange individual, who worked at odd hours in the night and who eventually came under suspicion by management that "he was up to something."
... he worked at a company in Austin, TX that is no longer in business and that is where I met him.
... he is definitely not boring and I appreciate that.
Go Winter Go.
I only care what two people think, me and God....and I only pretend to care what one of them thinks.
But it is an impressive 7 PAGES. After two, he'd go in the trash if I was the HR person reading it.
Fairly straightforward. A vist to any Starbucks should pretty much convince you it isn't about coffee at all.
Last year, *all* of the coffee shops within walking distance became Starbucks and when all the coffee shops are Starbucks then it can become difficult to get a decent cup of coffee without buying your own machine.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
no question is begged. it raises the question, but begging the question involves circular logic and other philosophical crap
I used to go to neighborhood coffee shops. But I got tired of the wide variation in quality.
:)
I like strong brewed coffee. But so often, I would pay my US$ 1.50 or so and get
something that tasted bad.
When I go to Starbucks, anywhere I happen to be, the brewed coffee is uniformly good.
Now, if I find my self somewhere other than Starbucks, I order a double espresso, since
it is harder for someone to do that badly.
So in my opinion, Starbucks is resorting to providing uniform quality.
Sounds like unfair competition to me.
Disclaimer: After noticing that there was always a line at Starbucks, I decided to buy stock in them too.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
FarFarAway in Shrek-2 has twin Farbucks :)
.. to :)
Closer to the end of the movie, when that baked
thing walks to the castle, patrons of one of the
shops escape in horror across the street
another Farbucks. Kinda takes a couple of seconds
to realize that and it makes it twice as funny
3.243F6A8885A308D313
"...and if you walk to the end of the block, there sits a Starbucks. And directly across the street -- in the exact same building as that Starbucks -- there is... another Starbucks. There is a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks! And ladies and gentlemen, THAT is the end of the universe."
At the time, Disney had individualized the stores as much as possible (within a given template), so each store would have unique front window displays and different character figures scattered throughout the stores. He had a large photo album with photos of all the different stores he had been in, documenting the differences.
Of course, this was before The Disney Stores started to...
- suck, by changing their merchandise mix from adults/kids clothing/housewares/art to strictly kids merch with the occasional adult sweatshirt thrown in
- suck, by being implanted in every single mall across the country, instead of isolating to a single storefront in the larger, more touristy-oriented cities making a trip to a Disney Store less of a special thrill and something routine
- suck, by diluting the brand that The Disney Store had achieved by failing to stock merchandise that folks couldn't also get at their local J.C.Sears-Mart.
... prompting Disney to negotiate to sell the stores to a different company. It will be interesting to see, if this deal goes through, if The Disney Stores can reclaim the magic that they had when they first opened.Yeah, as noted in other posts above, it's not the Travelling Salesman Problem. At all. However, he is travelling, and he clearly has some kind of problem. So, on a purely literalized level... /if only he was actually a salesman
Why is it that every time someone gets recognition for doing something that's not particularly useful, someone like you has to come along and insult his hobby and talk down to him about doing something more productive with his time.
argmanah, I don't know if you RTFA or not so let me point out a few choice quotes:
But I'm not obsessed with Starbucks, mind you. I'm an "enthusiast". My name is Winter, and this site is dedicated to my project to visit every Starbucks in the world, simply to be different.
It's not even clear that this guy loves Starbucks' coffee. In fact, he takes pains to distance himself from obsession with it. He is very open that his primary motivation for this idiotic escapade is to be different. That's it.
Strange though my goal might be, it is not nearly as painful as this guy's effort at being different.
Here he derides some other individual's pathetic attempt at fame, not even realizing that the guy is probably very similiar to him on a psychological level.
VCR ALERT!
I'm scheduled for a short interview on CNN Headline News Thusday, July 8, at approximately 7:45 PM EDT.
As though his pitiful pleas for attention were too subtle for the reader, here he is practially begging people to tune in and watch him.
Do you ever watch TV? Maybe you spend that time volunteering. Do you ever read Slashdot? Maybe you should spend that time volunteering. It's a ridiculous double standard you are setting when you and everyone else does pointless things to entertain themselves in their spare time, but when he chooses an activity that garners him some attention he is immediately admonished for not spending that time being productive instead.
I'm not sure you understood the point of my original post. I am not claiming that anyone who doesn't volunteer is a lesser person (and by the way, what makes you think that I *don't* volunteer?). I'm simply stating how sickened I am by this guy's desperate plea for attention and the laughable way he is trying so hard to convince himself that he's not an ordinary person. He reminds me of Meni Savari's character in American Beauty.
You ask a lot of questions about me. Fine. One of my hobbies is tae kwon do. I've been doing it for years and I'm really into it. I don't do it to be 'different'; I do it because I enjoy doing it. I don't have a website listing what time and place I practice at so that interested parties can come and watch me. I do this for myself. There's no need for me to trumpt my participation in my hobby or my accomplishments.
Don't be a hater.
I'm sorry, argmanah, but I guess part of me is a hater. I hate people like this Starbucks' guy as much as I hated all those people who stood up at my high school graduation and, one after the other, each proudly procliamed that "they had walked the road less travelled." Being different should come naturally. If you feel the need to shove your "differentness" down everyone's throat, that's a good indication that you really are just a frightened, ordinary little man at heart.
GMD
watch this
in upscale Troy, Michigan (my home state). I've been there dozens of times and never really even noticed that one fairly normal sized shopping mall needed 3 of these things, amazing. Reminds me of this Simpsons quote:
"You better hurry up tho, kid, in a few moments this place is becoming a StarBucks."
This guy kind of reminds me of Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, whose goal was to travel the universe and insult everyone in it, in alphabetical order.
Of course, he had a fantastically complicated on-board spaceship computer to help him figure out how.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Breakfast served all day!
Fortunately, he can visit 4-5 stores in one shopping plaza alone.
Now if he could catch up with all of the existing locations, then he could start taking pictures of the future locations before they are Stackbuckized. That would probably be of more historical and societal importance.
He could also take a few pictures of the local coffee shops before they go out of business when the Starbucks moves in.
Person1: u dont have starbucks there!~?
Person0: nope
Person1: u dont!~?
Person0: and don't bring it here either!
Person1: i'm sorry thats kinda mind blowin.. haha
Person1: u dont want 'em either huh
Person0: we already have Nescafé and Java stands
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
It's true! Yes, I too was once a left-coast California snob about my coffee, until I went back east with a girlfriend from New Jersey. Couldn't find an acceptable-looking "coffee shop" anywhere. I was "reduced" to grabbing a quick cuppa at a Dunkin Donuts ... and what do you know, they really do have pretty good coffee there. Fellow West Coasters, when you're back East next time, try it out.
Breakfast served all day!
The End of the Universe exists in Houston, TX.
b ucks/
Ever hear of this Lewis Black skit concerning the Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks.
Check it out here:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/i/d/idg101/star
I'm more shocked about how much money he must have spent at those $tarbuck$. Think about it. 4000 venues x $25 for a cup of coffee... $100000.00!
In order 'to be different' he goes to centrally controlled, brand-imaged coffee shops!?
Does he not realize he is a tool? There is nothing different about starbucks -- its purpose is HOMOGENY !
has marketroid propaganda finally trumped reality? If he wanted different maybe he should have enjoyed a coffee at any one of the locally owned and operated shops that are being destroyed by the market-power of starsucks.
oh the irony.
Don't be such a Puritanical prig. It's not a reflection of society, much less a "sad indictment". Not everyone agrees that corporations are evil or that the legislated preservation of uneconomic but quaint shops and neighborhoods for the entertainment of the upper classes is useful.
Give this guy and the rest of us a break, OK? Now, go back to working on your dream of making us all faceless and rule-obeying drones. You know, like we see in bad science fiction movies: The whole world looks like Marin County; everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes and rides a bike; everyone wears white robes and does what they're told and is oh-so happy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
http://www.p7a77.net/dennys/intro/index.html
Reminds me of the guy trying to visit every Denny's and find Weird Al.
At first I brushed this story off as just another publicity stunt.... then I actually looked at the webpage and found the starbucks closest to my house (less than a block away).
Somehow, that made the whole thing a lot more interesting. Here's a guy that's likely been a the majority of people's neighborhoods -- at least in North America.
Kind of neat.
I'd link to it, but since it loads 167 pictures (one for each location) it wouldn't be nice to his server. That doesn't count the 21 he lists as not having visited. (Now imagine adding Seattle's Best Coffee and Tully's which are also prevalent around here...) And I'm sure that he doesn't have a complete list because he has 130th & Aurora but there is also one inside the Albertson's across the street, unless that doesn't count for some reason.
This "end of the universe" joke comes from comedian Lewis Black's stand up routine.
Who the fuck even cares about this guy's hobby? Slashdot is becoming another NBC Dateline babysitting service. Pathetic!
To answer my own question, he doesn't count licensed stores and that is a licensed store.
I just did a road trip to Louisville, Kentucky for a convention and on the way had some of the worst coffee I've had in my life. Drinking that sludge made me thankful for Starbucks, Timothy's, Tim Horton's and Country Style here in T.O.
I went into one shopping mall and found nothing on the map that showed any coffee shops. I asked information and the only place they knew about was Chicken-Fil-A (geddit? Filet?). Their coffee (if I can call it that) was brewed a wheelbarrow at a time and tasted like it. Horrible.
However, it is possible to get good coffee on the road -- the Pilot chain has decent coffee. Not great, but at least drinkable. And when I got to Louisville, The Galt House (where I stayed) had fantastic coffee in their restaurant. Not Starbucks good, but definitely good stuff.
Oh, the local Starbucks? Nice place, but closed July 3, 4 and 5 for the Fourth of July. I guess it's an American thing to close for three days.
Maybe Starbucks coffee is burnt -- I dunno -- but I do know that after I pack in my first taste of Breakfast Blend with some Half/Half and Whole Milk, the world is a better place. Yeah, it's close to double the cost of the cheapie coffee places, but the flavour's worth it.
Maybe if he spent a little more time looking for work and less time driving around drinking coffee, he'd have a job!
You know, as the number of _non_ Starbucks coffee shops dwindles monotonically to zero, maybe he could make his quest feasible by just visiting those shops instead.
Not that I post on slashdot or anything.
Sigh... People, there is no such this as human pheromones. All the scientific research to this point has proved that fact. I know it's comforting for some to believe otherwise, but the idea of human pheromones are merely an urban myth. Can we get over it now?
Just in case it didn't get though: no human pheromones. BTW, pheromones in animals don't smell like anything, they're odourless. What you're talking about is BO (body odour). Oooh, now that's sexy. Pathetic. rolleyes
Those numbers are ancient! 1985 to 1988? Let's see some numbers from the late '90s.
-- No sig for you!
So he just got out of Seattle?
His personal quest is to visit every company-owned Starbucks and he's not doing too badly. After 7 years he's hit over 4,000 locations in the United States and 167 in Britain and Japan.
Taking on Manhattan alone in this challenge is simply too mind numbing for me to conceptualize. It seems like all the dope dens that open in NYC on a weekly basis can't even REMOTELY compete with Starbucks.
Why, at Astor Place alone one can almost LITERALLY stand in front of one starbucks, and shout across the square and above the din of the traffic to your friend at the OTHER STARBUCKS can will you!
Slightly hyperbolous. But ONLY by a might!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Kona is great stuff. I can't afford the pure stuff most of the time, but I found a nice blend.
My all-time favorite coffee is Jamaican Blue Mountain. Wow! I've paid $25 for a 1/2 lb of beans a few times in the past, and it's worth it. That is the stuff that I will not serve for guests, I horde it for me on Sunday mornings. A local shop near me used to carry a Blue Mountain Blend that was almost as good for $18.95 a pound, but they didn't sell very much and quit bringing it in.
-- No sig for you!
There are plenty of people that crave consistent (dull) offerings. They're too scared to risk anything by trying something new.
I see it all the time. They can't live without the familiarity of a Starbucks. They'll find problems with anything else. If you drag these people into a locally-owned shop, they're afraid. I find it quite funny.
-- No sig for you!
but with the local music store chain in Massachusetts called "Newbury Comics". They only have 25 stores scattered around southern New England. I've probably visited half of them without even trying. I buy a lot of CDs (yeah, I know the RIAA, boo-freakin-hoo) and they're all quite unique in their own way. I also thought about doing it with all the pizza places in the city next to the town I live in, but there's literally over 100 of them, and I don't think my colon needs that much cheese.
This guy is pyscho though, and certainly has my respect. 4000+ stores is just incredible, and his collection of pictures might actually be useful someday for research of the corporate giant.
Some people genuinely love large corporations products, I know it's hard for the Slashdot commies to appreciate. Ever notice the people who collect Coca-Cola products (perhaps the most overmarketed fructose laded garbarge ever)?
ChuckyG
Hey Starbucks Downtown New York!
Your coffee sucks!
(ticks entry in notepad, vanishes)
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
How exactly is visiting Starbucks considered being different?
(There used to be something clever here.)
I think bigbucks may be feeding this lads coffers a bit. Think about the marketing value that this guy brings. It is all a setup! I'm not a crook! My penis made me do it!
"Think for yourself. Question authority"
-tool
I like Philips Senseo in combination with Douwe Egberts coffee pads. A bit pricey, but I drink less of it and it tastes a lot better.
The water is pumped through the pads at a high speed, therefore there are less bitter constituents in the resulting coffee. At least that's what someone told when I wondered why I have less stomach problems with that coffee. Nice side effect.
Holy shit, are you some kind of fucking homo? Wait, I'll answer: "Yes."
slashdot is part of the OSDN network which has recently aquired starbucks. Cowboy Neal feels its a perfect addup to the new hacker feel of the visiting community !
Unless you note the fact that Starbuck's coffee has twice as much caffeine as other coffee shops. Then the question arises: are these customers actually making a free choice or are they being driven by their caffeine addiction to choose Starbucks so that they can get their daily maintenance dose?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
>> what's the point
:
Well, interestingly enough I went researching more about this problem
found this site
http://www.tsp.gatech.edu/
then I came up with an interesting idea that might turn into something usefull for someone out there.
using some of the code for solving the problem, why not apply it for routers ( as another solution along with bgp ). Make the cost ping times. This might be interesting back up solution for a networks.
this might be very interesting for office networks and small switch networks within communities.
Onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Has he had a decent coffee yet?
I can think of at least 3 cafes who roast better coffee than Starbucks in my area.
Bloody uniformity....why would you want the same bloody cafe all over the world. Ugh. Lets just level the whole bloody place with a bulldozer so we don't get any surprises. All I want is a Big Mac, KFC to go and a Frapaccino. I'd rather have shit on a stick.
Now maybe he is plotting the path of a really cool smart missile...yes that's a better way of thinking of it...Starbucks days are numbered! How long before he completes the trajectory.
That's my suspicion, anyhow. Now, if he were visiting and taking pictures of independent coffee houses across the land, his site would deserve a visit. But the McDonalds of coffee does not.
Has anybody researched this for a connection back to HQ? It just reminds me a little too much of the Mini robot website, that slashdotters quickly debunked by tracing the website ownership back to a ad agency used by BMW/Mini.
"I have to take a coffee break now.
To Phoenix."
Is that something like a Tim Horton's?
:)
??!?!
If putting stores within 2-3 miles of each other always results in higher revenue, then it makes perfect sense to tile the entire planet with Starbucks stores 2 miles apart.
It would also have the benefit that even in the middle of the Sahara desert you could walk on over to Starbucks and get a bad-tasting, but still coffee, coffee.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
...who post 809 comments on some groupthink-ridden online forum like this guy .
Only a complete loser would do something like this.
See subject.
Your attempt to portray non-smokers as being unreasonable because we object to your addiction is just silly. Seriously, your addiction? Not my problem. Your health-risks? Not my problem. I don't care if you get lung cancer and die. I don't care if you get throat cancer and die. I don't care if you get heart disease and die. If you smelled ok, I wouldn't care if you smoked. But you reek, so I find you offensive.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Making a small or large is no extra work. Starbucks employees prolly just look irritated because.. well.. they're working at Starbucks. Can you blame them?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Strangely enough, some people don't even need to smoke or reek to be offensive.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
So when someone comes along and accuses nonsmokers of thinking him a pariah for being addicted to tobacco, I responded that I, a nonsmoker, couldn't care less about his stupid addiction. It's the smell that bothers me. Is a little fresh air so much to ask for?
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
You demonstrate my point. You dislike smokers. They annoy you. Right or wrong, you think of them as filthy nasty people.
p.s. I quit smoking. I no longer smoke. But I hope I still offend you.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!