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IBM's Dirty Ad Tactics Bother SF Officials
Olmy's Jart writes "From CNN: IBM Seems to have gotten into a bit of trouble with San Francisco city officials over some pro Linux graffiti. They claim their ad campaign is done in "bio degradable chalk" but that, even after a rain storm, "the penguins were still there ... smiling broadly." IBM Advertising Guy (wearing long-hair wig and tie-dyed Tux shirt, dirty jeans): "Hey man, relax, like, y'know? We're all just, like, self-motivated hippies here, right? Be cool, be cool, we'll clean it all up."
I think I'm going to start painting those icons everywhere... This is the most brilliant thing Ogilvy & Mather has done in a long time--bravo to Big Blue for giving it the go ahead!
It's sad that it's always that zealot's loved ones that have to suffer.
I watched Cambridge public works people try to get this spam off with powerwashers. It faded slightly but is still clear as day. Chalk my ass. (no, on second thought, don't.)
Let's see...
we have the ultimate blue chip company, IBM getting in trouble for spraying graffiti advocating a hippie-freak OS?
I'm going to bed. This day is too weird.
I saw this on the street last Friday! I was laughing so hard.
I was walking with another sysadmin from my company, and commented that I couldn't believe that this was really IBM.
Jeremiah Cornelius
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
...for sidewalk.com when it just appeared. No one was trying to make Bill Gates clean it though.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Oh my god, you are so right. What an amazing plot!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
There's lots of graphiti-esque adverts 'round my part of the world (i'm vaguely near Hoxton/Shoreditch in London). I'm completely cool with small clubs or artists putting up "illegal" posters or spray painting things (cool examples: Banksy, the New Media Arse Media series, or the space invader tiles that I can't find the link to), but last summer a sportswear firm came and started spray painting their logo all over the place.
That pisses me off - they can afford to buy billboards (and, infact, do), so don't put your coroprate logo on the sidewalks - that's not cool and people see right through it. It's not edgey, it's not down with the kids. It's neither big not clever, and it just plain don't work.
Don't know if they used chalk paint, but, if they did, it's still there...
...j
I've counted my fingers and toes and i'm still not there.
Give me a minute while I take off my pants to see if that helps...
...j
Tangent - two examples of ad agencies taking advantage of opportunities which I thought were funny:
One ad company placed crushed cars around London to promote Godzilla flick. Had police tape and signs saying "Warning: Godzilla was here" (or similar). Insurance company comes along and places sign next to it saying "We cover you against acts of Godzilla".
Another ad company was recently renovating their London office. Their hoarding's had a sign saying "Bill posters will not be prosecuted". Ad company X, a bitter rival from down the street, placed a huge banner across the hoardings saying "You'll get better service with Ad company X" with an arrow pointing to them.
Heh.
...j
You're right! We can't have this!
Quick -- we need a solution!
Guaranteed to have nothing but mindless drivel, old-school slashdot styleee: http://news.getschooled.com/
(Complete with total editorial bias)
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
I think its about time you actually installed some software on that pc and started using it then.
That's actually pretty funny. And I'd like it if you kept posting articles with such decent explanations and interesting articles.
But then, how could I distinguish Slashdot from, say, The Onion, or BBSpot, or other weblogs with such high journalistic standards?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The [negative] press brings it even more attention. "Any press is good press."
Sweet, IBM!
Gee, I wonder if IBM will really feel that $500 on their bottom line? After what, a billion dollars, I think an extra $500 shouldn't be too bad. Unless of course, that was already budgeted. ;>
> fine of up to US$500 or by community service.
per add, presumably.
Prosecute them! Make them do community service! For each infraction, force them to replace windows with linux on a municipal machine!
hawk
:)
There was a saying back then: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." Probably true. I started coding asm I/O modules on 168s and 370s in '83 for PMSC. IBM was big, brutal, and as bad as MS is alledged today. They were a marketing company that happened to sell computers, etc. Then hey got their fannys smacked by the PC revolution and have managed to make a huge turn. Because they're a big corp, they think like one.
Don't they have a department working on Apache? At least Open Source can be talked about in their halls. It is openly supported.
This is a cute campain; unthinkable for them in the '80s. Assuming this paint will wash off, I'd pay the advert agency's bill. The news medias are going to give them lots of free exposure.
Time and time again clueless busybodies have attempted to supress elements of the culture that they find objectionable. All the while they only provide an easy pointer for mindless youthful rebellion and contrarians in general.
They may just be stupid, or they may be highly devious. It doesn't really matter as the end result is the same.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If they have a local guru, even a WinDOS user can benefit immensely from an expert friendly interface. Their local expert can better customize the interface for them.
So? How do I do something as simple as immediately forcing the monitor into DPMS sleep mode under WinDOS?
Also: ANY consumer system should be able to tolerate being shut down via power switch. The whole reason that WinDOS is more fragile in this repect is due to those "irrelevant technical details".
Robustness DOES infact matter to the mere consumer. It infact matters MORE to the mere consumer than to the user that can solve their own technical problems.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
...no, it is more like "the prosecution just proved the other table's case".
You whine about end users wanting to understand nothing and then in the same breath mention USB and Win2k.
You may have no clue about Linux, but don't presume we have no clue about Win2k. Your comment is simply assinine. USB doensn't "just work" the way you claim it does under NT5. As something that is not "the market leader", NT5 burdens the user with being aware of what is or isn't compatible.
Does NT5 support Logitech USB webcams yet?
You falsely assert that just because novices don't want to fiddle with the registry that suddenly, magically they are insulated from any issues that arise from it being implemented in their OS.
The windows registry is just a large underdocumented rcfile from the point of view of a common user. It's underlying implementation doesn't matter to the novice, just the possible issues of dealing with it.
It may make a developer's life easer perhaps. However, that is not supposed to be the primary concern of a system such as WinDOS anyways.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The end user is far more relevant in any discussion regarding "human factors". In a race to appear as something more than a cabal of mindless hacks, don't forget where the "human" in human factors comes from.
That and Microsoft is prominent in the UI hall of shame even despite...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You are a pathetic joke.
You have the GALL to whine about 5 year old Linux systems when WinDOS of that era had just BARELY managed to get away from MS-DOS.
In those days, I wouldn't be suprised if any interesting games that you might have wanted to run would still have required fuzting with xms and ems.
This is 2001, not 1996.
Your comments have absolutely no relevance to the current discussion. We are discussing Linux and WinDOS as they are NOW, not some time in the past sufficient for your rant to actually be relevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bullocks.
I remember when the ABM sentiment was AIM sentiment and PC's were associated with IBM and not Microsoft.
Still, IBM's real machines have always delivered sound engineering and excellent robustness. If I had to choose an monopolist, I would choose IBM over Microsoft. Not all monopolies are equal.
Linux is driven by demands for quality, not anti-corporate jealousy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, IBM has contributed a considerable amount to basic research. So has AT&T. This distinguishes these monopolies from Microsoft emmensely.
IBM has actually been contributing quite a bit to the computing community in general over the last 20 years. Even before Microsoft was on the AltOS Zealot's radar, IBM was visibly pushing the state of the art in both hardware and software.
At the very least, IBM redeemed itself with OS/2 long before this.
...and 1 Billion is still nothing to sneeze at.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If Microsoft did this, no one would notice.
Their stupid ads are already everywhere in SF anyways.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Bio Degradable does not mean *AFTER A SINGLE RAINSTORM* that it will melt like the evil witch of the west in the Oz. Come on people. There are plastic bags that are bio degradable. It takes MONTHS, even YEARS for it to happen. Get a grip, and sit the fsck down.
da w00t.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
aaah, i've been seeing all this 'peace love and tux' sidewald graffiti all over in manhattan, flatiron, soho, etc., and was wondering who was behind it all...
--Lenny
I've seen those street graffitos all over Boston. I saw the peace and love symbols and immediately tuned out, thinking this was Yet Another Indy Band stunt (there's a lot of that in Boston). I'm not sure who came up with this, but I don't think this "social protest" for enterprise level software is really going to shake middle America out of its traditional narcoleptic complacency.
I wonder what future "slogons" IBM will treat us to...
"UPS Power to the People!"
"Turn on, Boot up and Log out!"
"Don't let the pigs make you use Microsoft!"
"Fsck Authority!"
If IBM is just faking, why do they have so many people working on the PowerPC port of the Linux kernel, when they could be hacking AIX?
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
in the trade magazines. Read the article first.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
Marketing sent us a poster.
Vermifax
Vermifax
Logout
You spoke the truth and got flamed for it--big surprise.
I installed Linux 5 years ago, ran it for about 6 months, then decided it was more trouble than it was worth. I CAN get Linux to work (and have done so to prove it), but I have better things to do with my time. See Al Steven's columns in the last two Dr. Dobbs Journals--instead of DLL hell there is dependency hell. And don't even get me started on the scattered configuration files, multiple incompatible help systems, etc. Like Mac zealots, Linux zealots do more harm than good by denying that real problems exist. Anecdotes about someones granny running Linux are useless--these computers have been configured basically as set top boxes--no one ever said granny cares what her OS is. But for a working person who has to obtain software to do what I need, configure it, run it, etc., Linux is currently not viable. And I've heard that good desktop software is **almost here** for the past 5 years, and it still hasn't quite made it... .
I'm sure Linux is a great server OS. And for college students with more time than money it might make sense. I'd love to see it become a viable desktop alternative, but Linux just isn't there yet.
>K
http://24.147.16.240/
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... I saw a few of these on the upper west side of manhattan.. Pretty cute.
OBEY TUX
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
IBM vs. Oakland street gangs
That's a PPV event I'd write a blank check to see..
There's graffiti and then there's art. This is graffiti and astroturf advertising to boot. While it would be nice, I don't expect companies to play "nice." I do, however, expect them not to mess up my neighborhood.
My Chicago neighborhood is covered with this graffiti as well.
To be fair, most people who worked for IBM in the 70s and 80s aren't there anymore. Gertsner fired a ton of people in the early 90s. Maybe it isn't the same company. Then again, lets judge them by their actions not their advertising.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
Steve Jobs once said that he had no problem with Microsoft, aside from the fact that they lacked all taste.
Although I hate to credit Jobs with anything, he really hit the nail on the head that time.
Even if Microsoft became Open Source's greatest supporter and they'd port all their stuff to Linux, they still have no taste: I wouldn't use their stuff. =)
$500 fine or community service? Maybe setup an open source bar code scanner system in a soup kitchen?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Someone obviously read Upski's book..
Bomb the suburbs!
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Er. You're a guy, right?
--
Well, it simply went from everyone wearing black suits & ties to everyone wearing GAP khakis.
But still, everyone dresses the same.
--
This is exactly what linux needs to become fully
and completely mainstream. This is not sarcasm. Tux on every corner, massive advertising campaigns, done entirely in sidewalk chalk.
Lets continue with this, and we'll destroy the evil microsoft empire REAL SOON NOW!
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
Considering his propensity for long, wordy, story-like copy, what would David Ogilvy think of a campaign that doesn't even mention the (agency) customer? This is the guy who brought us "The man in the Hathaway shirt."
And his opposition to outdoor advertising was famous. He put billboards in a book chapter entitled "What's wrong with Advertising?" and said "I cannot believe that the free-enterprise system would be irreparable damaged if they were abolished."
It was telling when I met a girl at a party in NYC last month who was working for Ogilvy and had never even read "Ogilvy on Advertising." Didn't even own a copy.
What's the world coming to?
The problem with Microsoft Astroturf campaigns was that they obscurred both the source of the funding, and the fact that the editorials and things were actually advertisements.
Neither of these is true in this stunt from IBM. Everybody knows IBM did this. And nobody would mistake these sidewalk drawings for anything but what they are, advertisements.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Could some Gimp artist create a desktop background out of these logos? Just a stylish light-gray background with dark-gray peace,love and linux logos...
Would be very cool.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I have seen several examples of this ad-grafiti in the upscale Licoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. I was wondering what kind of weirdo Linux zealot it would take to do such a thing - now I know - IBM.
The first time I saw it I barely even payed attention - about the third time I figure it out. Subtle ad campaign if ever there was one.
-josh
People have been pepper-sprayed and jailed for doing the exact same thing IBM's done. IBM shouldn't merit special treatment. The police should march to IBM HQ and pepper-spray the marketing prez and drag him to jail in handcuffs, and then the judge should sentence him to pick up trash in the park for 8 weeks.
I don't smoke, but I think the 'truth' ads are some of the most obnoxious and grating of all time.
The sheer pretentiousness of the campaign just annoys the hell out of me.
Ugh.
C-X C-S
My Dad used to tell stories about how IBM would send out technicians to work on the mainframes and printers, and how they always had to have the same suit and tie, no matter how dirty the actual work was. Nice to hear things have changed...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Cheers,
But you're more honest than 99% of the people here. If Microsoft had done the same thing, we would've heard about how evil it is that corporations are allowed to do this. They wouldn't admit that the real reason is that it's okay if companies they like do it but not okay if companies they don't like do it. So in the end, it's just arbitrary favoritism instead of any real principles, which I imagine the original "Slashdot Hypocritical" poster was referring to.
Cheers,
they've done this in new york as well. i was walking down the street the other night and i thought i was seeing things.
pretty ballsy (sp).
-Jae
Now THAT would rock.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The civil penalty is $500, or community service. As long as they could get the $500 judgement per infraction... Although, I must admit, it'd be funny seeing the CMO of IBM doing community service in the Haight-Ashbury area.
(PS: I submitted this like this morning, and it was rejected-- what's up with that?)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Advertising companies realized years ago that most people were suspicious of them (with reason) and would take the word of a friend or any other 'regular person' over what an advertiser said. That lead to series of commercials with man on the street interviews and things like that. Word of mouth advertising has been popular for years, but the ad companies let actual human beings, 'regular people', do it for them both in advertising and by passing the word to others.
Today people mistrust the ads they see more than ever, and most advertising gets ignored because it's just all over the place. So, the ad firms are taking it beyond just word of mouth and dependence on people to recommend their products to others. Now the ad firms are stepping in and trying to appear like they actually are the 'regular people' consumer advocates and fans. Movie studios are setting up fake fan sites, software companies create user groups that appear to be independent when they're anything but. IBM is just heading down that road with its graffiti and trying to make it look like Joe From Nextdoor likes their product. This particular incident is too professional to fool anyone into thinking that it's not just a well placed ad, but you get my point overall...
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
Buy the carton and remove the cigarettes. Smoke 'em if you want, or give them to your friends or homeless people. Mail the empty carton with an appropriate note. This way, the evil tobacco gets USED, which should piss 'em off even more.
Blar.
eom
Blar.
Hey, just because IBM is a big company doesn't mean that they have the right to free advertising. Do I think that the city is being harsh? Yeah, I've chalked sidewalks for charity events and such before, but it IS illegal. How is it less for a huge company than for a 16 year old kid? That doesn't make sense.
What if M$ were doing this? Would anybody defend them if they spraypainted their ads all over?
No, we would all be cutting on them, shouting how they don't have the right to vandalize our streets.
They might be painting penguins, but it isn't much different...
Peace, Love, Tux? He may be a loveable penguin icon, but he represents the way the Linux community has sold out to big money and big corporations.
_ _
For all the hard work of the hackers in this community, we don't deserve to have IBM mock us with a symbol of our own design. What will it mean when someone sees the penguin image and says to you, "Hey, isn't that the new thing from IBM?"
IBM wants to televize the revolution. We shouldn't let them.
(Now back to my developerWorks article...)
_______________________________________________
QWxsIHlvdXIgQmFzZTY0IGFyZSBiZWxvbmcgdG8gdXMh
Could the person from gcc.edu who went to the computer and UPS pictures, which were posted on the networking story a day ago, and who just went to the matthoppes.org website tonight, please e-mail me?
matth@nospam.syncwater.org
Thanks!
I was also wondering what bacteria eats calcium. Chalk is calcium carbonate. Actually, a little acid rain will be good for breaking it down.
Okay, I'll admit it. I thought your website was cute. But the link at the bottom to AOL's OpenSource (so they claim) free WebServer w/ built in TCL (http://www.aolserver.com/) totally floored me. I didn't even know they were putting something like that out.
How long has it been out?
Is it based on Apache, or is it their own brew?
Anyone have more info?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
I wish... there's a drought here at the moment, believe it or not...
Si
Coming soon - pyrogyra
QT/KDE vs MFC
Real Windows Developers use raw Win32 with ATL.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Ok folks, once again: RMS is NOT against capitalism. He's NOT against people making money from software.
He just wants users of software to have the ability to fix and enhance it!
There are plenty of good reasons for bashing RMS, but this is not one of them. Please stop spreading this FUD.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
this was announced several weeks ago internally (no surprise, this). I surmise a common reaction within IBM was something like "At least it's not recycled OS/2 Nuns."
"Peace, Love, Linux" - it's not the subliminal sex, drugs, and rock&roll message of the Windows95 launch, but then again, IBM would _never_ do that (I hope). I believe IBM is communicating the message that it "gets" the synergy of Open Source cooperation, especially about Internet and software standards. I also believe IBM is sincere.
I did recognize it. Was quite surprised to see it on various corners in SF.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
that is a cool idea, can someone make a temporary tatoo for this?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
what if microsoft did this tomorrow? followed by intel, then coke? then pepsi, and soon every company is spraying?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Piqued my interest. I have use for a nonpermanent, easily removable spray-paint to do some protest art. Does anyone know where I can order a few cans of this stuff? (Unlike IBM's version, I'd need something that would wash off easily with water and a detergent.)
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Kinda a west-side / east-side thing.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
One thing I respect IBM for is their _ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC_ linux JDK 1.3. Not only it works but blew everything Sun / blackdown had/has. I have no sympathies for SUN, but I do hope blackdown guys get the recognition for their awesome work. THey made JDK on Linux a reality. Sun/borland tried to steal their work but the flames from community set them straight.
Jbuilder 4 is hosted on IBM jdk. Not just for LInux but in Windows & Solaris too!
On the side note, you have a 'billgates@evilmail.com' public email and have a link to SUN site? SUN is equally (if no more) evil as MS. And trashing IBM? Hmm.. not impressed! No candy for you
FWIW, these appeared in Boston and Cambridge, MA as well.
The only part that made me sad was that they didn't include a gnu as well. Surely, if peace and love go with Linux, GNU belongs in there as well.
As a computer geek working in an ad agency, I must say that this one worked. Whenever you get serious people to talk about IBM paying $500 fines and community service, you win. The penguin rules the streets.
OK, I admit it. I want to see Lou Gerstner (IBM's CEO) scrubbin' the sidewalks tomorrow mornin'.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Or they could waste it on the teachers.
Public school in general is a total waste of time and money for most people. The teachers and students generally don't want to be there.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
siri
Oh yes,
I can clearly see the nervous IBM Executive standing in front of the judge and waiting for the punishment.
The judge beeing a former hippie, smiles and read from his paper. "IBM is sentensed to Community service and should in three schools, upgrade the operating systems on all PC's to run Linux."
The judge looks at the IBM executive and adds "Let this be a reminder that the city can't tolerate this kind of behaivour. If you continue this hilarous act of spraying penguins everywhere, there are some schools for underpriviledged childrens that also needs an upgrade."
Everyone chuckles and goes back to business.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
I guess that this ad campaign is lost on me... I guess that it is trying to capitalize on the free-software-foundation-open-open-source-hippie vibe that people associate with linux, I guess. Are they pitching this to the pointy-haired managers or something? Not that ad campaigns generally make sense to me anyway.
The invasion of public space in cities by creeping advertising of this kind, stencilled graffiti-like ads (no, this is not the first of this kind), are another symptom of the malignant ad creep being experienced in major cities...
And whay, exactly, is so dang peace-love-linuxy about buying a server with linux over some other flavor of unix? I am for spreading linux as much as the next advocate, but when you are presumably paying for support AND the OS, where is the hippie philosophy?
Maybe I am wrong - is IBM advocating ordering their big iron servers and then downloading an ISO of the new redhat distro for S/390...
an adbusters link seems appropriate here somewhere.
+++ ATH0 +++
I said it when they first started, and its on my dorm room door: "Peace, Love, and Linux" = "Sex, Linux, and MP3".
I respectfully disagree. If MS would spend the money to promote "Peace, Love, and Linux", then I would applaud their effort. If MS would actually really and truely support Peace, Love, and Free and Open software, then (once it was believed) everyone would applaud. Its not because they *are* microsoft, its because of what they *do*.
Maybe just maybe there *is* a difference between Peace, Love and Linux, and the evil empire? Maybe just maybe it really is the difference in messages and not the medium that is the issue?
I was born in 1961. I remember when IBM wasn't worth liking.
"They contribute a little bit of code, mention Linux on their website, and all of a sudden they're the good guys?"
I also remember when a billion dollars was real money, worth mentioning.
How is Peace, and Love, (yes, and Linux) different than self-promotion? Are you for real?
The "99.999% uptime" MS ad is awfully gross.
.com's fail faster than that
But what does it mean? If you're out to measure
uptime, you're either up or rebooting. So if
MS has got reboots down to 20 seconds now,
that suggests that they can stay up for only
23 days.
I suppose
these days, so maybe no one notices.
I said it was brilliant, not that I liked it.
------
You've got to hand it to those marketroids at IBM. Think about it: if the stuff they used to make the ads would have washed away, then only San Francisco people would have seen it. Because they got themselves in minor trouble with the law (or city by-laws), it's heard all over the country via CNN. Every CNN watcher has now heard that "IBM strongly backs Linux".
This is great for Linux, and it's great for IBM. Somebody at IBM deserves a raise.
------
Jeez, gimme a break. Companies change. IBM has. Are they 100% perfect no, but then what profit minded company can be with the /. crowd ?
/.,"Its Funny Laugh."
Of course it is in their best interests to do so. They want to be a hardware company like always, and supporting Linux on their hardware is a way for them to point and say you can still use it when they drop driver and OS support for it. It also relaxes the need for them to develop every latest greatest thingy for their systems. Need it now, get Linux or wait.
That is WHY I think their support is very legitimate. Because I can see at least one profit oriented purpose in it.
As to applauding this, it sure is funny, and Ironic. Yes it is Ironic with a capital "I". Can you imagine the IBM of the eighties putting up graffiti anywhere, illegally or otherwise ? That is half the fun of it. If you do not remember the old IBM then you really aren't enjoying this to its fullest.
If you needed proof that _something_ at IBM has changed you just got it. Does it make up for everything they have ever done ? NO. So what ?
If we don't accept the little changes then we'll never get big ones.
Enjoy it, as seen on
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
Is that supposed to be a peace sign? Looks like a rocket to me ... why is the part that's pointing up longer? Those marketing guys always have to fuck up something ...
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Oooops, you're right! ahem ... now everybody knows I'm not a real hippie ;-)
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
welcome to the looking-glass world.
The did use hot pink for some of them, at least on Van Ness.
The cake is a pie
"Love, Peace & Linux", what a fitting slogan.
Is linux an Army? Army of the 12 Penguins?
All jest asside, IBM seems to be doing lots for the commnunity; hardware, software, laptops w/dvd, etc. I'm pleased to see this Giant in the industry get so involved with Linux. And if the city of San Francisco desides to fine IBM, it's still a pretty cheap ad campaign; cheaper than buying TV advertisements or hundreds of bill boards.
How is this so different from local bands plastering lamp-posts and telephone poles with ads for their next gig?
/.'ers are amused by this campaign. Had this been Microsoft, there would be a million posts screaming for blood. How is IBM's ad campaign different from any other Big Company?
/. reaction so far is telling. While most posters (at least those moderated above 1) seem to have a pretty light-hearted outlook on the whole scenario, they share the city government's simple-minded rhetoric as well -- it's OK if the little guy gets some attention, but we need to bash the Big Guys simply because they are Big.
It's nice to see that
SF City Officials, true to Californian culture, get their sphincters tied in knots if a Big Company pulls something like this, but turn the other way if it's the Little Guy. Nevermind the fact that if the Big Companies pull all of the tech shops out of the area, SF would be bankrupt in less than a year. Punish the producers. That's about as smart as forcing power companies to operate at a loss and expecting them to stay in business.
Personally, I don't think there's any harm in this kind of campaign. We're already inundated with advertising on billboards, shop windows, radio, television, T-Shirts, etc... would SF city officials fine me for wearing a Tux T-Shirt on a public street? Playing my car stereo within earshot of public property? California is pretty hostile to business. It's no wonder so many companies are bailing out and moving operations elsewhere.
SF bureaucrats are motivated by sensationalistic dogma bashing Big Companies because it's OK to punish the successful for being successful. They fail to demonstrate how the sidewalk-chalk icons pose some threat to life and property. There's no debate on the legal or political merit of the law (especially in the face of their attitude toward other advertisements on public property).
The
There's also a similar lack in substantive debate over Linux vs. Microsoft (or any free software system vs. any commercial software system).
Where are the technical discussions of the new Linux Kernel scheduler vs. the abomination of a scheduler in the Win2K kernel? QT/KDE vs MFC? gcc compiler optimizations vs MSVC? Python Vs Java?
City of SF: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."
I was quite surprised to see this graffiti on my way to work. Billboards, yeah, but street graffiti has a rudeness doesn't strike me as IBM-like at all.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've thought for the past year or so that someone should make a 'beatnux' or 'beatnix' distro, with lots of flower-power iconography. Lots of Baez and Beatles.
Peace, Love and Free Code.
The thing is, it's kinda scary that this generation's loudest beatnik "stick it to the man" sentiments come in the form of banishing copyrights and civil infringements. What happened to organizing those voices to the things that really matter? Where are the protests against unjustified warfare, civil rights abuses, racial intolerance in our police forces, environmental sabotage, sexual inequality, caste systems, and voter disenfranchisement?
[
If you want to talk about environmentally wasteful, you really can't get any worse than AOL. Think about all those non-bio-degradable floppies and CD-ROMs you find in your mailbox, in your magazines and, in the case of most of the Slashdot crowd, in your trashcan. Imagine how many landfills those things take up. And then there's all the resources and pollution involved in creating these things. I'd take IBM's pollution over AOL's any day.
Saw the stencils spraypainted on the sidewalk at the 14Th Street N/R.
That being said, there's a very cool component to the company somewhere that I'd love to hook up with...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Maybe SF was the beta test sidewalk. Now someone's going to have to open a FITS record on the chalk and send it back to the lab for further development...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
On the other side of that coin, I'm sure many people in the AIX teams would rather Linux just went away. I doubt we'll ever see a Linux port of the Lotus Notes Client. There's a very uncool business unit somewhere in the company working on CPRM. IBM will exhibit a split personality as a company because it has one.
Even if the entire company can tow the same line, it takes a long time for the company to change course. The processes and beurocracy that have evolved insure that the company's not as quick on its feet as RedHat or Lokisoft can be. I started pushing platform planning to think about Linux 5 years ago and they're just now to the point where they're thinking about it.
Ultimately, the company exists to (gasp!) make money, so RMS and company will probably declare them Evil and yadda yadda yadda. If I can work for them and get paid to enhance this platform, I'm not going to bitch about it. I like programming open source. I like being able to pay rent and eat, too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I would have been happier to read of a penguin invasion of Seattle. They probably get enough rain to not need to worry about cleanup.
J
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
A friend of mine at Almaden said that KorpMgt sees Linux as 2 things:
a way to sell WAAAAY more hardware and software
Want proof?
Look at their last quarterly numbers and then do a comparison with MicroShit!!!!
DAMN RIGHT, IBM GETS IT...to the tune of an additional 6 billion in sales this last period!!!!!
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
KEWL!!! As long as Redmond doesn't get a penny, I say GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
Any publicity is good publicity to some but this can't be bad publicity in any case. It's just few harmless biodegradable graffitis that'll wash out in few weeks (or someone from ibm will wash them).
Calvin Klein (or benetton) got criticised for his provocative ads bringing him even more publicity, how is this any different?
Very clever, indeed.. It sure made an impression at slashdot.
Well, apparently the tip-off that it wasn't a local SF gang was that they used black instead of flamingo pink...
> I smoke, and frankly, I'd rather spend my last
> days wringing the mucus out of my shriveled,
> blackened lungs than have the pleasure of
> living to the age of 175, all the while sharing
> oxygen with snotty self righteous fucks like
> that.
Heh yea. Their propaganda campaign just goes too far. Its really sick I think.
I don't smoke, never have (not tobacco anyway), but man, their campaign almost makes me want to, just because they are so obnoxious.
As bill hicks said "I would quit smoking if I didn't think I would become one of them".
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
IBM's Linux ads feature "hippy" logos from the 60s.
Therefore, they are targeting people who were young in that era i.e. the managers and corporate leaders of today.
Therefore, they aren't targeting the "newbies who weren't even alive in the 80s".
Therefore your theory is bunk.
-Legion
There's a brief history of the symbol which says that "the most common proportions [of the arms] are 3:5" (though not why.)
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Just imagine the uproar this would have caused if people woke up one morning to find DAEMONS spray-painted everything.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Whoah... Peace and love and Linux man... pretty far out... I wonder if the drug culture has caught on... Its been a while since I was involved, but can you find Tux or Daemon blotter out there now?
.
Well your talking about it ...................
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
I'll tell you one thing -- anyone that applauds this can NEVER diss Microsoft for astroturfing again. IBM dresses up a guy in tie-die and a wig, paints banner-ads on the streets, and many of you are now ecstatic about the "grass roots" support IBM is showing for Linux? But, as always, if you're dumb enough to be fooled than [sic] you deserve what's coming to you. It is said that some people can change. It is even said by some people that some people can be forgiven for sins committed. "To err is human, to forgive, devine" I believe is a common saying. The US Justice Department, to my knowledge, has never found that IBM did anything anti-competitive. A little too competitive at times, perhaps, but look at where that got the US steel industry. IBM, if you recall, went through some serious recovery at the beginning of the 1990's. Many believe that was the change from an old IBM to a new, fair, product centered (instead of cool technology and Nazi-esque -- a little bad IBM humor there -- marketing department). So, is IBM the same being it was 20-30 or even 40 years ago? Some of the faces may be the same, but they needed to change their behavior when Lou Gerstner, their current CEO, took power. I've had friends and relatives go to work for them since then and seen some of the same people leave. Fresh blood brings fresh ideas. What does all this have to do with Linux? IBM's history has been filled with the word "proprietary". Lately, I think "hooker" is right. They'll do literally anything you want for money. If you want Linux embraced and extended, you'll have to pay for that. If you want more code, you'll have to pay for that, too. The difference is, most people want Linux on more platforms, with a few small improvements here and there. Customers seem to be rewarding them for working within the system on the kernel and creating proprietary binaries for their existing products. The company hasn't been around for 100 years + (following name changes) because it can't adapt. If you buy into their propaganda and products, like lots of people seem to be doing, you do deserve what you get. It seems like lots of people have been happy with it-- certainly happier than with Sun, LSI, TI or Accenture.
Out of ten possible troll points, I give this article a three. Next time, perhaps use facts which aren't so obviously bogus.
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I like to watch.
I'll tell you one thing -- anyone that applauds this can NEVER diss Microsoft for astroturfing again. IBM dresses up a guy in tie-die and a wig, paints banner-ads on the streets, and many of you are now ecstatic about the "grass roots" support IBM is showing for Linux?
But, as always, if you're dumb enough to be fooled than you deserve what's coming to you.
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I like to watch.
The public works department planned to call IBM Thursday and tell them to scrub the signs off, Mamak said. The infraction is punishable by a fine of up to US$500 or by community service.
I wonder if they could get "time served" because they are helping out the community by doing public service announcements for better computing.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I've seen some of those TV ads from "TheTruth" where they advocate ripping out ads from magazines, and there is fine print on the bottom of the screen saying to only rip out ads from magazines you own...
IBM says client coming soon (some probs w/ libs). Remember, NOTES is on OS/2, AIX and Mac...all now have *nix desktops (thanx KDE and Gnome!) and now IBM will port to Linux. DB2 client/server==there...WebSphere Server==there...httpd==there (and FREE (gratis, not libre))...JDK==there...jikes==there...550 total sponsored OSS projects (and growing==THERE...Iron Penguin (Linux on a zOS/z390 LPAR)==there...u want more????YOU COULDN'T HANDLE MORE!!
While you are waiting for a proper Lotus Notes client port to Linux, you could do a lot worse than run Lotus Notes under Wine. I've migrated my development (DB2 UDB) desktop machine to a dual boot (WinNT/Linux) and since I got Lotus Notes on WINE running smoothly, I haven't rebooted into WinNT for over three weeks.
In my experience, Lotus Notes runs nearly seamlessly since the December 2000 WINE release. Currently its running on a 20010326 release compiled against a 2.2.19 kernel and I swear its more stable on WINE that it was on NT. Everything seems to work - mail, calendaring, attach/detach - hey even the Notes web browser works.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I like the campaign, I think it's cool. So how long untill we get to buy into the conspiracy with Peace Love and Linux grafiti templates of our own? Or at least shirts.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Turns out that's pretty much how he signed the release when they asked him if they could run it. Pretty funny stuff. Since he signed it that way, they just ran it that way.
I've seen the documentation, but it's all internal so I can't point you to it. :(
[|]
This has got to stop, or we'll have corporate advertising on every publicly visible flat surface. To see what this would look like, go see "Josie and the Pussycats", the movie that answers the question "How much product placement can you cram into a single film?".
I don't know if that's the intention, but it is certainly having that effect.
I am a smoker, and every time I see these impotant fucks on TV, I light up a camel just for them.
I liked the carton of smokes idea from a few posts back, but I think that what I'll do is buy myself a carton, smoke the cigarettes, put the butts in the carton, and mail it to them with a note that reads: "Here, assholes, I smoked these just for you"
And as a condition of my will, when I die of lung cancer, I want my family to mail my death certificate to these pseudo-health-nazis, and then sue them for prompting me to smoke so much.
I'm bitter, and I smoke. The two go hand-in-hand.
*I* didn't take shit from you, and implying that I did so disgraces your ancestors by inferring that your porn-surfing, computer-using ass had anything at all to do with the native american culture of yore.
Your bring shame to your family by breeding hate, your bring shame to your heritage by using the internet, of all things, to do so, and you bring shame to the whole of native american culture by acting like a putz.
There have been plenty of atrocities commited by people of white skin throughout history, but don't blame me for it just because I am white. My grandfather wasn't even alive when those hillbillies raped "your" land.
Seems like the only people who have a problem with color these days are minorities.
And at least I have the balls to use my real account to post this.
more likely than not their own brew. They have a thing about doing things internally in TcL.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
Rumor has it that we IBMers are being offered $ to get these tatooed on our foreheads too.
My wife is like Unix. Lots of commands. Lots of arguments.
A lot of people on /. will probably not understand your post. See http://eastvillage.about.com/citiestowns/midlantic us/eastvillage/cs/basquit/ for some background. I wouldn't have understood it either, except that several years ago a friend invited me to an art house cinema to see the movie.
Need XML expertise? crism consulting
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Surely a corporation as large as IBM must have a sidewalk they could use for testing purposes. I sure hope they test their software better than they tested the chalk.
Need XML expertise? crism consulting
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The real thing is that it isn't corporate IBM that's doing this. It's their ad agency that comes up with the strategy- and it's actually not a bad one IMO.
IBM has decided to go after the Linux market whole hog, but it's pretty clear that Linux is different from most IBM products and needs to be marketed differently. Big Blue has been the company that sold its products by convincing the suits and letting the techies live with it, while Linux has been a product that the techies sneak in behind the suits' backs. IBM needs to convince techies that it really understands that attitude, and an underground-feeling campaign like this is actually a pretty good way of doing so.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Am I the only one that noticed the slightly skewed nature of this article?? Throughout there's a slightly mocking tone to it, as if to say. "Ha ha you screwed up, IBM!!". Most obvious example is the section where they mention that this supposedly soluble/bio-degradble check had survived a night that it rained. Ask any northwest native, and we'll tell you, there's all kinds of rains. saying "it rained" could desribe anything from a few moments of light drizzle to a night long downpour with hail. Wonder which it is??? *goes off to check the weather channel's website
Sending spam is legal, ethical, and basically a good thing
Philip Greenspun saw this server, liked it (he really likes Tcl for some reason), and decided to use it for the ArsDigita Community System. He (or someone else) also talked to the people at AOL and convinced them to make it Free (speech). So they started working on taking out the bits that they didn't have the right to distribute, with an eye to making version 3 Open Source. And that's basically what happened.
All in all, I think there are only a handful of users of AOLserver, most notably AOL and ArsDigita. It's been a while since I've read it, but I believe he talks about it in Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing. BTW, there are a lot more links, resources, online books, etc, available from the ArsDigita site. (I'm not sure how long they've had it out; probably between two and four years. Less time for the version with source.)
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--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
What these ads are really saying is, "Love, Peace, Linux, and a legion of happy IBM lapdogs." It seems so cheap and petty to use these ideals to hawk their cheesy wares.
Go fuck yourself, IBM.
You have obviously not actually, and in person, made a peace sign stencil. As it happens, I HAVE.
The peace sign is a contiguous unit, no "flash" is required, the parts are inherently connected.
Look at the picture closely and you should be able to see this for yourself.
KFG
Because the part that sticks up is SUPPOSED to be longer. It isn't a Mercedes symbol with an extra bit, it's a peace sign.
The question SHOULD be why does the part that sticks down appear to have horizontal stabalizer fins.
KFG
I'm sure Bill's little head woulda just popped if someone had painted "Peace/Love/Linux" on the Microsoft moniker in front of the building. *grin*
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
The sidewalks all over my University campus have been chalked on since long before I got here. And yes, the Linux Users Group here does it, so IBM can't claim to be the first. Of course, we use actual sidewalk chalk, the stuff you buy at Walmart for $5 a bucket. I always wondered why I never saw this stuff on big city sidewalks.
their ad compaign is working pretty well.
Peace, Love, and Linux :~)
Oh no. The world is coming to an end. Let's just hope:
"I think this means Linux," said Jonas Yip, a chip designer in San Francisco. "But unless I really stopped to think about it, I probably wouldn't know what it means."
that the new generation of chip designers aren't all idiots.
forth ?love if honk then
I'm glad I'm not one of those Linux script-kiddie-unix-guru-wanabe losers, and use a real UN*X!
Allow me to repeat - the issue is not language wanking, it is strong DB tools.
The original focus, which remains the same today, was pooled database connectivity in a threaded webserver. What this means is if you interact heavily with the database, the overhead of db client creation is removed. Single process architecture makes caching simple.
Apache only recently gained db pooling, and caching is still done out-of-process, eg, Squid. Naviserver had this back in 1995. Given that Apache is process-based, not threaded, Apache's pooling is still inferior.
Don't switch just for language wanking; that means nothing for user experience. But for a site with heavy database interaction, aolserver can show an order of magnitude performance improvement over Apache.
Visit philg's intro for more background. (Oh, and if you can't stand Tcl, Perl & Phython versions are being developed.)
I need to clean up some parts of Cole Valley.
I agree with you. They are also on alot of the corners here in Cambridge Mass in our semi-residential neighborhood. I'm a linux supporter but I recent corporate ads, by _anyone_ in our neighborhood. I was wondering who did this, thanks to slashdot for letting me know
Should say resent, not recent :-)
IBM used to always be known as a very strict company, where the dress policy didn't allow anything close to casual. What was the cause of the company shifting from this, as they now seem like they've loosened their collars a lot more, spaypainting linux logos on sidewalks and such. When did this change occur or is it just starting now? IBM seems to be pushing the limits of advertising, something that they probably wouldn't have done 10 years ago. Not even the .com's spray painted sidewalks. Maybe if they did they would have stayed in business.
His dad is black, American Indian and Caucasian. I'm not sure of the exact percentages.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Gangs? We are talking about SF here, right? They probably added the heart and peace signs themselves. (Note: I lived in Berkeley for six years, and I'm halfway serious. We're not talking South SF or Oakland here...)
yeah, monster trucks, kack daniels, linux and a cute penguin for a mascot...hmmmm....let me think for a moment.... Nah. It would have to be a pit bull.
the whole damn city. I saw them at Fulton/Divisadero, in my neighborhood.
sulli
RTFJ.
Bring him on!
sulli
RTFJ.
movie posters have been posted like this since - oh, I dunno, the day movies were invented? Why do you think fences have "Post No Bills" signs?
sulli
RTFJ.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
"just connect this to..."
BZZT.
Liberty.
. . .
IBM's site has a nice explanation (in flash) here
*** I am the real stylewagon
I think that Sid said it best in Sid & Nancy, "None of that free-love hippy shit here!" I think that the Linux community needs a new mascot, especially in light of the recent IBM support. We can change the name to Hard-working-nux and the mascot can be a tall white vietnam soldier with short hair. There's a mascot that we can be proud of! You won't see hard-working-nux defacing America with filthy love and peace. hard-working-nux will come back from Vietnam in time to find a nice job and support his 1.5 kids and a wife.
OMG, it's late and this post is acually pretty stupid.
Keeping
I do a lot of random chalk drawings around my college campus... it usually takes them a week and maybe one or two rainfalls for them to wash away, and this is if i fix them too... I use standard Crayola sidewalk chalk that costs $4 a box. shameless plug: my chalk - http://chalk.rpi.dhs.org/ and more coming soon :-D
~mo
Heh.. david bowie as andy warhol!.. :).. good movie! :)
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
I saw these on Fillmore, north of Geary, a couple of days ago :). Coencidentally, I also saw a rather punkish-like guy on the street wearing a black I-love-Linux shirt right before seeing the Linux sidewalk advertisements on almost every corner walking north on the west side of Fillmore. I just thought it was a pro-Linux area or something ;-).
I bet the local gangs were worried someone was taking over their turf. Actually, they were probably just really, really confused.
For some reason I just want Linux to be seen as a mean son of a bitch, a vicious dog, a cowboy, one mean mother- that's tough as nails.
Like linux & open-source needed more PR to make us look like a bunch of flakes.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Samo suits woz ere.
IBM's failing, along with the engineers who suspended the beetle-like shell under the GG bridge, was it not greasing the right palms or sucking up the Hizzonor, Mayor Brown.
If anything, though, can be learned, it's don't take anything any SF complainer says seriously, they're just miserable because they didn't think of it first and they'll be complaining about something entirely different in a couple days.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
Man IBM are advocating linux in a big way! That one seems to be cheap though - Chalk a designer and a small(?) fine - BAM! Huge media coverage - That's very cool I think. Bravo IBM! Pretty cool icons too ;) :) I was looking for some tux gfx and stumbled over them =)
Btw did you see these weird tux's?
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
peach, love bestiality
Er... Well, y'know. You can't make an omelette without um... destroying a forest. Or something.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
And remember:
The cigarette does the smoking; you're just the sucker.
Hehehe....
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
I saw the "Peace, Love, Linux" logo sprayed in black on the sidewalk near Times Square last night (44th & 8 Av. I think), and I thought WTF? Is this the work of some local Linux group? Surely IBM didn't do this...but they have been doing things differently as of late. Personally, I would like to see a huge Tux attached to the Empire State Building, but perhaps that is wishful thinking?
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
  If IBM realizes that appearing this way is beneficial to them, they will increase their emulation of the free love/free software hippee movement. They will even have to hire and listen to the opinions of linux developers/hippees in order to capture that section of the market. If someone values your market share enough to aim advertising at you, you should use it to your advantage!
  If you ignore this blatant attempt to get your attention, they will ignore you. If you fight against them because they were trying to get you involved with their products, they will fight against you and your products.
  This is a BIG score for the open source movement, don't let your ignorance and prejudice get in the way of something good.
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
Came across this warning on a bottle of spray chalk: "...Warning: although spray chalk will generally self destruct with traffic and weather, it is advisable to check with local authorities prior to use. Use in well trafficked areas. Spray chalk may adhere to some types of asphalt longer than others depending on the oil content and porosity of the asphalt. If used in a low traffic area, marks may last several months. If in doubt, pretest in a small area, let dry and remove..."
If this were Microsoft, you people would be none too happy. We would be happy that someone was using the law against their (illegal) marketing tactics. That is why this is a good article. It shows government officials standing up for citizens rights to not have their privacy constantly violated by invasive advertising pervading every aspect of their lives.
I applaud the city officials of San Francisco and cheer them on their fight to defend the rights of the citizens they are sworn to protect from disgusting commercial practices like these.
Whatever marketroid came up with this should be tried and held accountable for these crimes.
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Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
I can remember when boo.com did their relaunch, they covered Camden (in London) with these little stickers. They were everywhere, lampposts, dustbins, trees, etc. This was all part of their "modern urbanist" image.
:)
Camden Borough Council was well pissed off because each one had some crazy adhesive on them. It took them about three months and god knows how many thousand pounds to clear them off all. For fly posting you can get fined £1000 per poster... or sticker in this case, boo.com could face a £60m charge easily... which is more than their market cap
People who post inflammatory comments AC have the same appeal, and deserve the same respect, as people who pick their asses and eat it.
go out and start graffitiing(is this a verb?) linux penguins everywhere. IBM can take the blame, but more people will think that linux is hip and cool cuz they see it sprayed somewhere in the city. What about doing this at universities? I know that linux use is more prevalent there, where students can get a free OS that doesn't crash!!
Well, gotta go get some spray paint...
While we're talking about IBM's dirty tactics, Here is a nice advertisement. (For the goatse.cx weary, it's http://www.geocities.com/zekester1945/) I recommend WebWasher for Windows users and JunkBuster for Linux users to eliminate GeoCities popup ads.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
If some poor punk kid had gotten caught spraypainting something like that, they would have been arrested, and spent time in jail. City governments get really pissed about grafitti. I think it would be stupid for IBM to get preferential treatment simply because they are a corporation. I think everyone at IBM should spend a night in jail.
see subject...
Liberty in your lifetime
Maybe they should have tried that stunt over here in the UK; one of our larger detergent vendors is currently running a "Love, Live and Laundry" campaign on national TV!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
The painted ads don't mention IBM or its eServer family,
That's a problem for IBM I guess. If only ibm could get some mainstream media giant to associate them with linux... what article was this quote from again? Oh, gee; now I get it.
Wooo, I'd love to have a piece of wall with penguin head on it, together with my vast collection of Berlin Wall pieces.
IBM, please come graffting our town!
Is it me, or is this guy smell like a Microsoftee?
"I have no fear for atomic energy, cause not even that can stop the time" Bob Marley
Penguins != mammals. Hint: Mammals are the animals with with hair.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Anyone trying assist with the display would probably get cease and desist orders for copying their "look and feel"(tm)
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
An ex-IBMer once described having a document signed by a VP. He was at the sacred HQ. He is finally ushered into the VP's office.
It was huge. At the far end was the VP. There was nothing but a telephone and a pen and pencil on her equally huge desk.
She took the document and signed it without saying a word. And he left.
She was wearing a blue business suit.
For the next installment of IBM Linux commercials Linus will look around at all the graffiti on the ground..then slowly a tear will fall from his eye.
Nils from Frazier (US TV show), in the episode where he puts on the basketball gear over his shirt & tie and shoots from the centre circle? Brendan the anal-retentive teacher in When Brendan Met Trudy (Irish movie) looking perplexed with a spliff in his hand? ...
If this were Microsoft shilling Windows XP with a Windows logo on the sidewalks, you'd be up in arms faster than you could say "Bill Gates Sucks!" You'd all be complaining about how they're taking up public spaces, they have no right to paste their evil empire symbols all over the place without paying for the advertising space, etc. etc. etc.
At least get your priorities straight!
Like that won't happen soon? The residents of SF are tightening up their sphincters so much they're starting to act like the residents of Paris. 1. Chill out SF. Take a pill. 2. Big blue has turned 180 and realized who's buttering the bread. 3. They probably hired an SF ad company to do the campaign. It sounds like the work of SF School of Art grads.
This is a travesty. In a world where ads are already plastered over virtually every public surface in cities, the last thing I want to see is for companies to start painting them on the sidewalks!
Even though it's a bit of a cool idea, and it's for a Good Product, I don't like seeing Tux being used to further destroy the visual landscape and turn formerly innnocent sidewalks into tools of coercion.
IBM should get hit hard for this, if only to send a clear message that there really are limits to where you can put ads.
Wait, hang on..... Spammers beating each other to death.....
So in conclusion, the city of SF is evil and wrong. IBM should be allowed to proceed as they wish, as should all the little spam.com companies. When the lead pipes come out, things will turn out for the best.
Should be glad IBM are on the Linux band wagon. Imagine the graffiti if they were advertising BSD. Peace, love, and a little satanic evil looking horny creature all over your sidewalks.
-- The avalanche has started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Now if somebody puts them on Microsoft Builds??!! We all be in peace and love with linux
My first reaction to this was, "this is the same IBM my father used to work for?" I remember Dad coming home from work one day in the early 70s and announcing that he was now going to be allowed to wear light blue shirts - they didn't have to be white anymore! A very conservative company, driven by the numbers.
Now, think about this little campaign. Ad space is expensive. It costs money to print up the ads, and to place them on billboards, park benches, bus stops, or whereever. By fining them $500, the city of San Francisco has effectively put a price on sidewalk advertising, and it's bloody cheap. The stencil couldn't have cost too much to make, and they can do a lot of sidewalks with it.
Another poster compared this with SPAM. I can see the connection, I suppose, but if IBM pays the $500 fine, then that will cover the cleanup expenses, and I have a feeling they budgeted for it all along.
So, this was actually a carefully thought-out strategy, focused on the numbers and free publicity, with a light-hearted twist to keep it different. Anyone remember the IBM commercials with the cast of M*A*S*H (for the PS/2, IIRC)? We're definitely looking at the same company!
Just as future advice, and not to berate you at all, but people don't typically take to cleaning things off of sidewalks using paper towels. I agree they are very handy.
"I think this means Linux," said Jonas Yip, a chip designer in San Francisco. "But unless I really stopped to think about it, I probably wouldn't know what it means."
I hope he is making Frio-lays or something because almost all the tech industry has seen tux on something, somewhere. Even the most clueless EE's around here know that Linux == Tux..
Now if it was a 'little friendly looking devil' that would be a diferent story!
IBM has been fined for this interesting ad campaign.
5 01 /ibm_ads.html
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/daily/04/042
"Chicago officials rankled by IBM's 'peace' ads
Associated Press, 04/25/2001"
"CHICAGO - Big Blue has been caught red-handed.
City officials are considering fining IBM for painting peace symbols, hearts and penguins on sidewalks as part of a promotion for the company's Linux computer operating system.
The Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM said the black designs, painted at about 100 spots, were supposed to be done in biodegradable chalk.
Company spokeswoman Trink Guarino said Tuesday that IBM had discontinued that part of the 'Peace, Love and Linux' campaign.
The fines run $50 per location. Officials also said they may try to charge IBM for the cleanup - about $134 an hour for equipment, labor and supplies. Each patch will take up to an hour to remove, said Debbie DeLopez, who runs the city's graffiti removal program.
The city learned about the campaign after police arrested Ali Morsy, 20, on suspicion of painting some of the symbols. He faces property damage and vandalism charges.
San Francisco ordered IBM to remove similar graffiti last week, an official said."
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Personally, I like seeing these ad campaigns. I see this refreshing billboard all over Si Valley, and the only other one that sticks in my mind is some vile Microsoft ad touting 99.999% uptime and the coveted 5 nines as if anyone knows what they are talking about.
I think that using guerilla marketing strategies such as placing graffiti on sidewalks is and excellent idea, considering the campaign fall in place with technology based on Open Source ("Free") software. So, as my logic would have it, it's nice to see free software be advertised using free techniques.
I see all sorts of graffiti lying around on sidewalks of San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury section - it's a interesting mix of pseudo-hippy crap clashing with encroaching yuppies. This IBM campaign is an intellectual break from the mindless dribble more frequently found in these places.
So instead of boring us with another set of made up numbers, IBM uses a refreshing way of reminding us what they are doing at the moment - and I like it - I feel compelled to smile at that penguin every time, even though I like BSD flavors much better because they are more coherent than Linux distributions.
I find it interesting that the big blue whose position in the industry is pretty much anchored is making strides to have a fresh face and participate in the whole 'open' movement. Strides in Apache and Java come to mind in particular, I know at my company most of Java developers us the IBM development tools. IBM also embraced the Linux kernel very early on and makes laptops that come with Caldera on them (T22).
Peace, love and Linux, right on. For once there is an ad from one of the big boys that doesn't have any lies in it.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
I'd much rather see the stuff IBM painted on the ground than seeing some very kanji-like scribbles on a wall somewhere. At least we can understand it. :P
Then again, it is rather amusing watching exchange students try to make sense of the graffiti, that actually says "R-Town Posse" if you look reeeeally close. It's even better when they happen to write "dumbass" in some foreign language.
my ass. Parrotting the company line is not insightful, Mr Crack-smoking Moderator.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
I'm sure this has been talked about before here but... Has IBM ever apologized for working with the Third Reich and selling them machines used to keep track of Jews during the Holocaust?
If IBM were really clever, they'd "open source" the ad and publish {ps,pdf} versions of the stencils so others could put the ads in their towns. They could even include specifications for easily removable paints/chalks/etc. (colored hair spray would probably work wonderfully) With the appropriate "this might be illegal in your area and, if so, it's your ass not ours" disclaimer, of course. It would only take a couple of motivated people in each town to bring this to epidemic levels. -John.
Searching in google for "spray chalk" led me to this. Did IBM say it would biodegrade quickly?
I think if this where a NIKE add or a McDonalds add spray painted on someones wall, then the whole story would have been different.
We dont really need more advertising. We are bombarded by it.
The funny thing here is that there was actually a meeting in some board room at IBM with a bunch of soulless marketeers discussing this strategy. It wasnt a spur of the moment idea. This kind of thing requires organization.
Of course, you will disagree.
D
...If you're gonna be dumb, you'd better be tough...
i saw the same thing on the ground on 8th avenue and 42nd street just off times square in nyc... i would have dismissed it as just another grafitti rendering (except this time by some linux terrorist cell trying to communicate the need to replace gw bush with a server running linux maybe?) except that right across the street was a 5 story billboard with the exact same 3 symbols and those undeniable deathstar letters: IBM... i was awestruck because the connection was undeniable between the six-figure advertisement, and the late night student activist scrawl on the sidewalk... the world can cough up some odd hairballs now and then! ;-P
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yea it's wrong to have a couple chalk drawings that won't wash away, but there's all those computers out there with the MS Windows stamp (or sticker) embedded into their tower, and that doesn't wash away either.
I work with a crack junkie and all he ever talks about is SuSE and SCSI hard drives. I swear, if I had never heard of linux before I would hate it worse then MS. Camps are nice, but obsession is not. Besides FreeBSD of all others anyday.