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Mystery Tiles From Around the World
puppetman writes "The Kansas City Star has an interesting story about Toynbee Tiles.
They show up embedded in streets, and can be found in the US (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Aberdeen, Edgewood, Washington, etc), Chile, Argentina and Brazil. They are made of "epoxy or super hard plastic that's actually inlaid in the asphalt itself."
The tiles invariably state, "Toynbee Ideas in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect Dead On Planet Jupiter".
Sometimes there are secondary tiles that request people make more while others are of a more paranoid slant.
Toynbee was a religious historian who believed that "well-being of a civilization depends on its ability to respond successfully to challenges, human and environmental". There is even a Ray Bradbury book, The Toynbee Convector.
Toynbee.net has a link to a Usenet posting where someone ask's Kubrick's daughter if the man himself knew of the tiles.
To date, the origin of the tiles are a mystery. Any /.'ers able to provide the location of additional tiles, or perhaps clues for solving the mystery?"
...for a nice, orderly queue under this posting, so we can avoid cluttering the main topic.
So, where are all the tiles? Who knows, but it sounds like a fun thing to geocache for. :)
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Penrose tiles. Much tastier, and less fattening.
...form a nice orderly queue, even. I want an edit button (and yes, I previewed).
In a few weeks they'll all light up and you'll realize they form concentric circles around a just-constructed used car joint.
...and all we get are these lousy tiles.
Seriously, thinking about 2001 depresses me. When I was a kid I had every expectation we'd be flying around in Pan Am Space Shuttles and learning how to use zero-g toilets.
Instead we live in a world where Pan Am goes bankrupt, and NYC still hasn't figured out how to install restrooms in the city.
These tiles are nothing more than a cruel reminder of just how lame the 21st century is turning out to be.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
AaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA...
That always creeped me out.
What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
For those who want to deny any and all knowlege about these so called "tiles"
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Google cache of toynbee.net!
I!!! for one!!! welcome!!! our new!!! tile-embedding overlords!!!
Better yet, map them out and look for some form of meaning that isn't there. Invariably, cults will form to worship these mystic tiles. They will be allegedly comprised of unearthly materials, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
Is there any money to be made in cult leadership? Inquiring minds want to know.
it actually would be, without this add-on, in bold ...
Toynbee, who lived from 1889 to 1975, was best known for his theory that humanity's perception of its history shapes its future. This theory was turned on its head and used as the premise for a 1983 Ray Bradbury short story titled "The Toynbee Convector" in which a character by the name of Stiles travels 80 years into the future and returns with stories of mankind's marvelous achievements. Stiles' reports of a future free of war and disease (ie, Rob Malda's GRID (Gay Related Immuno Defficiency)) prompts people to join forces to work together to attain this future and in 80 years they have succeeded. Stiles then reveals that his story was a lie. But the world he prophesied has nevertheless come to pass, validating a kind of corollary to Toynbee's theory, that humanity's perception of its future shapes its present.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I submitted a correction.
In the meantime, enjoy the history of the 'h' in Pittsburgh.
For more information, click here.
But only in the early 80's. Since the quality and durability of pavement here in Brazil is approximately the same as chicken crap, streets get paved and repaved every decade or so. They're long gone.
Slashdotted, some images in a google cache further down, here's the text though.
Google Cache
I am NaN
Yes, just ask the Scientologists. :)
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
wondering myself
... as long as these tiles don't contain the phrase "12 monkeys", that is.
Were these tiles placed by inept water fearing aliens?
Only 3 posts, and the site is already slashdotted... Google Cache here
This is the text of the rant which is attached to one of the tiles:
.
John Knight Ridder is the Philadelphia thug (?) hellion Jew XXXXX Hated this movements guts- for years- takes money from the Mafia to make the Mafia look good in his newspapers so he has the Mafia in his back pocket. John Knight sent the Mafia to murder me in May 1991 XXXXXXXXXX journalists XX then gloated to my face about death and Knight Ridder great power to destroy. In fact John Knight went into hellion since of joy over Knight-Ridder as great power to destroy.
I secured house with blast doors and fled the country in June 1991.
NBC attorneys journalists and security officials at Rockefeller Center fraudulently XXX the "Freedom of Information Act" all XXX orders NBC executives got the U.S. federal district attorney's office who got FBI to get Interpol to establish task force that located me in Dover England.
Which back home Inquirer got union goons from their own employees union to XXX down a "sports journalist." Who with ease bashed in lights and windows of neighborhood car- as well as men outside my house. They are stationed there still waiting for me.
NBC CBS group "W" Westinghouse, Time, Time Warner, Fox, Universal all of the "Cult of the Hellion" each one were Much worse than Knight-Ridder ever was mostly hellion Jews
When K.Y.W. and NBC executives told John Knight the whole town gloated in joyous fits on how their Soviet pals found a way to turn it into a...
It's L. Ron Hubbard. Goto Xenu.net and read a little bit of OT III if you don't believe me. All it needs is some volcanoes and atomic bombs and it could be the high teachings of the Scientologists!
But he had to write a book. That's too much work.
I want my cult NOW!
When the antichrist arrives, we wont even belive, because everyone will think it's a hoax :)
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
i have seen those here, in Philadelphia, for a long time (i guess since the 80's?) and kind of like the author i never understood them, but once the light turned green, i got on my way and totally forgot about them.
/. effect wears off you can look up your town's documented tiles.
i honestly could not tell you where they are, but after seeing the picture it came back. i don't remember what the local ones say but the style of text in the same and the size of the tiles and whatnot.
for people in Philly, i am 99% sure there is one in a crosswalk on South street maybe around 4th and south? i guess when the
How Is This A "Mystery"? Some people thought it would be cool to put tiles all over the place. End of story.
Next on Slashdot, the mystery of strange sticky circular blobs that appear on sidewalks all over the world, and are extremely hard to clean off.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I tried to push my thumbnail into the tile. It was rock hard. Harder than the asphalt itself.
How the h*** does one manage to determine if something is harder than asphalt using the THUMB?
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx? ID=36606
So this tile-maker guy was from Philadelphia, huh? Figures, Philly's a weird place, and not in a good way. I wonder if he 'sees dead people'.
If no more of these are appearing, maybe it is the old (now dead) guy in the article. He published an article about resurrecting dead on Jupiter, and he lived in philly where these first appeared.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Answering my own question (sort-of) check this out. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx? ID=36606
They gotta be....
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
Yes, it's true, any persons caught trying to decipher the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles will be prosecuted under the DMCA. Listen, just because you can go out into public and read these mysterious tiles does not mean that you have the mysterious right to try and mysteriously figure out where they mysteriously came from. That is the exclusive mysterious right of the mysterious man/woman in [insert color here] who placed these in the first not-so-mysterious place to begin with.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
Well, theoretically here's one. When I can duck out and drive across the country to verify it, I'll let you know ;)
d etails.aspx? ID=36606
k .html)
For now, geocache away, Toynbee followers!
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_
For a message board on this topic, go here (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/3790/geoboo
You know I'm getting sick and tired of people telling me that I'm weird, that I'm not well connected with reality. These tiles, at least to my way of thinking, are a perfect example of how weird this world is. People are putting these things everywhere and the world just keeps moving by them without a thought to them.
Without a thought! And yet the world calls me weird!
Fine, I want to try being normal. Will someone please send me one of these tiles so I can put one on the streets of Sandpoint. Then maybe I'll fit in.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
All your tiles are belong to Toynbee.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
These tiles remind me of the "Andre the Giant has a posse" stickers I have seen popping up in cities here in Texas for about 5 years. I would write it off as a local thing, but I noticed the stickers on a recent trip to Europe in both Rome and Barcelona. Anybody have any ideas anout what these are?
Does anyone know where these tiles are in Pittsburgh?
Yeah, it's on the toynbee site...
Smithfield Street and 7th Avenue
Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue
Smithfield Street and Forbes Avenue
Forbes Avenue near the Allegheny County Courthouse
Penn Avenue across from the Hilton
Two years ago, a reporter found evidence that one James Morasco is behind the tiles.
I seem to remember reading more about the Morasco link somewhere, but it was so long ago I cant remember where. It was almost definately linked to on the snopes.com message board, but their search system is pretty bad.
You know, I saw this on techtv awhile back... they had an "expert" come on, i think he had a PhD, he kept talking about a deeper meaning, i think he has a site too but i'm too worthless to find it...
on Scientology...
Maybe it's just ultrasound coming up from the sewers?
In downtown Washington, somewhere around Hotel Washington. It wasn't red, white and blue though, just black and white. I thought it was a joke and painted on recently. I guess I was wrong. I live in Philly myself, but never saw one around here.
nuff said.
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
I used to see a bunch of these around Midtown Manhattan in the early-mid 90's. They've all been long gone one by one when time came up to resurface the streets. Only they weren't tiles as much as persistent scribing in asphalt.
He can keep the psycho-killer computers. I have enough problems when they "seg fault".
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
this piece is from an online version of a newspaper linked from toynbee.net about the tiles found in my town in ohio. ---------- One interesting side note, however: the idea of monotheism, according to Toynbee, originated with a gentleman named Zoroaster. The name might not mean anything to you, but the famous theme song to 2001 (Dom-Dom-Dom-Da-Dum!) probably does. The theme's title? Thus Spoke Zoroaster. And the plot thickens. ---------- i thought some more people would find that interesting.
I've seen a large number of these mysterious tiles. They too have strange writing on them, which sometimes makes lewd suggestions or tells offensive jokes. I have always wondered how that writing was created on all those tiles. I've usually noticed these mystery tiles in restrooms stalls at schools, offices, and even airports in many major cities around the world! It's good to know people are starting to investigate the matter.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Can be emailed at polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk
great site that's not (yet) /.'d
http://www.tiagoteixeira.com.br/toynbee/
Huh? You had it right the first time.
Title: "Mystery Tiles From Around the World"
:)
And from the article: "in at least 20 cities around the United States (and two in South America!)"
It kind of reminds me of the times when Europe was the known world.
But if the late James Morasco was the tile maker he went to his grave with his secret and is now presumably on the planet Jupiter getting a tan.
So the crushing, pulping pressures of metallic hydrogen gives one a nice tan, eh?
--- Ban humanity.
The Supreme Court installed him in his counterfeit court.
Google found me this, I don't know if anyone else has posted it:s .aspx?ID=36606">http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cac he_details.aspx?ID=36606</a>
<p>
<a href="http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detail
<p>
Some geocachers have been tracking these tiles.
<p>
in Philadelphia PA:
13th and Chestnut sts.
N 39° 57.021 W 075° 09.725 ?
<p>
in Pittsburgh PA:
Smithfield St. and Oliver Ave.
South Corner nearest Mellon Bankk
Oliver Ave Crosswalk
N 40° 26.442 W 079° 59.890 ?
<p>
in Baltimore MD:
By Peabody Conservatory . . . Mt Vernon Pl
N 39° 17.832 W 076° 36.937 ?
"It's probably a man, because the tiles are obviously installed at night since nobody seems to have witnessed them being put in. It's unlikely a woman would risk being alone at night in a downtown environment."
Yeah, as if a person insane enough to put prophecy tiles into asphalt would drop the idea due to risk of being alone in a downtown environment.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
So this guy calls all over the world and talks to a bunch of people to research this thing, and then he can't sit through more than 10 minutes of Kubric's 2001? How lame is that? No wonder some mystery person has it in for journalists...
Besides, it is a great movie.
"Well it's not Victory - but then it's not Death either."
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cac he_details.aspx?ID=36606
in Philadelphia PA:
13th and Chestnut sts.
N 39 57.021 W 075 09.725 ?
in Pittsburgh PA:
Smithfield St. and Oliver Ave.
South Corner nearest Mellon Bank
Oliver Ave Crosswalk
N 40 26.442 W 079 59.890 ?
in Baltimore MD:
By Peabody Conservatory . . . Mt Vernon Pl
N 39 17.832 W 076 36.937 ?
I had a similar experience in Vienna/Austria. One day by accident I saw the words on an ad poster translated to latin (or some warped form of it), in pencil, all caps, about 0.7 mm high. I thought nothing of it. But having seen this one item, I suddenly saw them everywhere. I realized that in my neighborhood nearly all the names of the residents were translated (pencil, caps, ...) on the front doors. I saw timetables on bus stops translated. I started to open my eyes to it in other districts of the city. Bingo, there they were - names, ads, traffic signs, basically everything on the streets you could translate and write on had a good chance to carry them, and I kept seeing them for 12 years all over the city, until I moved away (no, not for this reason :) ;o)
There were times when I thought of charting them and trying to find out who the guy is (yes, I had nothing much to do), but I reminded myself of what can happen when one goes overboard with those things and thought better of it
A crackpot, sure, but one with a hell of a determination
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Reminds me of a paving slab in the corner of the Domplatz (cathedral square) in Koeln (Cologne - damn Slashdot's hatred of HTML entities), Germany. When I was there in the early nineties, there was the big Friedenmauer (peace-wall) - generally a post unification, end-of-history, anti-Gulf-War kind of thing - and the square was a really busy centre of demonstrators, artists and so on. Over in one corner, one of the slabs had, engraved into it, "This could be a place of historical importance". At the time, when everybody was kind of filled with a sense of capital-H history going on all around them, what with the end of the cold war, and atlases going out of date left right and centre, this seemed like a fairly profound statement - and probably encouraged the Friedenmauer builders to think that maybe they could make a difference.
Seeing this story finally inspired me to Google this phrase, and it turns out to have been the work of one Braco Dimitrijevic, and apparently other similar slabs can be found around St Martin's College in London.
Obviously no Kubrick reference, so not so geeky, but still a pretty cool bit of public-space art.
In some cities, the standard "Toynbee tile" is accompanied by smaller adjacent tiles that express sentiments such as:
Submit. Obey.
Could this be an attempt to link into the Obey phenomenon? Sure, the tiles started in the 80's, but perhaps a new breed of social engineers are trying to plug us into the idea of examining our surroundings?
Or maybe some folks think that graffetti doesn't have to be a bad spray job that says "dave love's jessica" or "metallica rules!"
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
There's a Toynbee tile in the intersection of (IIRC) Broadway and Olive streets in downtown St. Louis. I had always seen it and thought it to be a marker left over from some art festival, etc. I never had the time to stop and read it due to the rather short nature of green lights. I had no idea there were more of them until I saw a weblog entry about this site. I clicked and instantly recognized it. I have no idea how old the tile is but it's in excellent condition.
Kilroy did it
Yeah, we had one of these downtown here in cincy, I think I remember an article in the paper about it like five years ago. They have since repaved and it is gone. Strange...
And I for one welcome our new tile overlords.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Scientology seems to think so..
http://www.spaink.net/fishman/home.html
They were obviously placed by a time-traveler from the future, stuck here in 2003. In order to return to the future he needs a just a few parts, or the plans for a simple time-transport device. Wait a second, I've got his e-mail address here somewhere...
But "Kilroy" had a meaning, and was just graffiti spread by WWII soldiers, which came to represent American soldiers presense around the world. It was a meme that spread like "All your base" or "In soviet russia", though noone is 100% sure where it came from. I remember an old war era Bugs Bunny cartoon where he goes to the moon and "Kilroy was here" is scrawled on a moon rock.
These tiles are supposedly the work of the same person/group as they're all the same composition and tarred to the road in the same way. At least so the articles say. I'd guess some are spray painted or whatever, most are the work of copycats.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Cross reference to another slashdot headline story-- And it was funny?
Mod the parent up...
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
Wow, you mean something was actually on TechTV weeks BEFORE it was on /. ?!?! Something's wrong with this picture... ;)
It's in front of my office here in Cincinnati. In fact, the local alternative weekly ran an artical a few years ago.
Creepy.
I'm curios, don't you see "sponsored links" when you click on that link?
This article has a great ending.
"I ask him if he thinks maybe it's a beacon or a landing site for invading spaceships from Jupiter. `Maybe they're coming for some barbecue," I suggest.
"Could be," Edwards shrugs. "But we're closed on Sundays." "
That sums the world up so nicely. Here we have the intillectual worked into a tizzy over this mystery. We have the entire slashdot community talking about it. What does the working man have to think about it? he just doesn't want the aliens to show up sunday cause he is closed and he can't server them. In a nutshell it is saying that I have real work to do and a bussiness to run. I produce something in this world so really I don't have time to worry about silly crap on the street. I like that idea. A great way to realize that even if we had the answer it would not change on thing about our lives today.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
The tiles are pieces of a Rambaldi artifact. Get them all together, use an image sequencer, and you'll get a picture of Jennifer Garner in a tube top.
There used to be one on Michigan avenue (I think around Adams) on the northwest corner in Chicago. However, when they redid the street, they just sorta covered up some of it. I believe you can still see about 1/2 of it. I never bothered reading it, I thought it was one of those weird art things that the city tends to do from time to time.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Did anyone else think of "The Chronoliths" right away, or is it just me?
It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful made and crushingly boring movies of all time.
Somewhat on the mark, but methinks he didn't rent Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" which is actually, without a doubt, the most beautiful made and crushingly boring movies of all time.
That is all.
The "dead resurrected on Jupiter" thing made me think of Clifford Simak's City stories, in which humanity is transformed to live on Jupiter (which was some sort of paradise to the ransformed).
The "Submit. Obey." reminded me of John Carpenter's They Live.
1) Embed Toynbee tiles in streets around the world
2) ??
3) Profit!!
funny thing: most of the sites that are linked to from this page seem to have ... dissapeared.
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/15831
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
RTFA
but aren't they the most filling of all tiles?
of rhis 'Europe', it intriges me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Many of these towns/cities DID have an 'h' at the end until the renaming convention stated in the article at everything2.com mentioned. Pittsburgh just happened to be large enough (and stubborn enough) to tell them all to go fsck themselves.
There are several reasons the Everything2.com story doesn't seem to hold water. First, there are as many towns in PA along the same path that end in "boro" that were founded by the British, such as Barnsboro, Springboro, and Waynsboro. None of them switched over to 'burgh'. 2nd, Pitt didn't found the city of Pittsburgh. In fact, no one British did. The city was founded by the French in the late 1600s and was called Duquesne. They built Ft. Duquesne at the point where the 3 rivers (Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio) meet; currently were Point State Park is. There is a historical marker commemorating the old fort. The British were took control after defeating the French (shocker there
In fact, MANY of the french (and german, more on this later) named border towns were renamed to British names after the war. You will find hundreds of towns ending in 'boro', 'burg', 'town', 'ton', 'ville', and 'hill'. You'll also find that even though it was originally found by the French, and claimed by the British, most of the towns in Central/Western PA contain mostly people of German, Polish, and Slovakian descent. This also led to a lot lot of misspellings and mis-pronounciations.
-Ab
ps. Considering the original article is in the Kansas City Star, are you sure they didn't mean Pittsburg, Kansas? I can't check www.toynbee.com cause it's currently slashdotted.
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
All I could come up with was
Toynbee Idea = I beet one a day.
Maybe the person is a poor spelling foster parent.
I know, but I thought it was a little too quick. I've known some handy 70-yr-olds. If it wasn't that guy, it was either a friend or some nutter who read his article.
Plus they said this probably required heavy equipment. I can't see some guy in his 70's out in the middle of the night(Old people don't stay up late) lugging equipment around.
Way too general. Whoever this was certainly wasn't normal by any stretch, including age-related stereotypes, I'd expect.
The clue which points to him certainly is the best starting place, but I'm guessing its some other wacko who heard what he said and decided to make his crazy theories his life work.
Very much a possibility. I'm not discounting the old guy though, as he's the only certified nutjob known.
Also in some places they have reappeared when overpaved since they're sightings in the 80's.
Supposedly the guy didn't die all that long ago (late 90's?) so if that's the case he could have been responsible for a few generations of repavings at least.
I just hope having this on /. doesn't start a copycat craze. I'd would be a shame someone else took credit or led the investigation in the wrong direction.
Don't worry, too lazy. ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
...restrooms in the city
It's not just NYC - it's London too. Perhaps if we just killed all the smack-heads and homeless people, there'd be no need for ridiculous counter measures like having dark blue lights in toilets so addicts can't find a vein to inject into. Surely the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Doesn't seem fair on me, or the owners of pubs and restaurants that people have to sneak around ignoring `for customers use only` signs just to take a leak when its just down to `got any spare change, mate?` losers.
Don't worry - not happy with the 21st century? You can start investing in the 22nd now! Just buy from major corps, and the promise to bring you the future!
It was me.
or did you mean
"no man shall know the hour" ?
I won't dwell on apocalypse.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Dammit, doesn't anyone bother to read the article? This isn't interesting or informative. The reporter interviewed Morasco's freakin' wife.
Geez.
At least one of the tiles on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh it still there. I saw it this summer. Considering the state of the City's budget, it will be there for years to come before they can afford to re-pave.
I, for one, welcome our new mysterious tile overlords.
Does rather depend on whether they want to claim responsibility for a queue, or those who want to claim responsibility form a queue.
I work in baltimore, and have stepped over these tiles. I always took note of them because they made no sense, and didn't look like ordinary "road repair" graffiti. Strange...
There's a tile here in Cleveland, on Huron Road just northwest of the Sherwin Williams building.
Odd.
-=Android=- Chew's Eye Shop http://www.chewseyeshop.com
I, for one, welcome this subtle form of mind control from our as-yet undiscovered overlords.
There are a lot of this plaques in Brazil too... A friend of mine even built a site talking about that: http://www.tiagoteixeira.com.br/toynbee/. It's in portuguese, but there's all the links he could find.
alive and kicking nicholas frota
TechTV did a thing on it about a month ago...
Toynbee Mystery
Mysterious plaques with a prophetic message have been appearing all along the Eastern seaboard. Tonight, Bill O'Neill, the foremost expert in this phenomenon, joins us via netcam from Atlanta to talk about who or what is leaving these plaques and shed some light on their meaning. The plaques read:
"Toynbee Ideas
In Kubrick's 2001
Ressurect Dead
On Planet Jupiter"
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
in pencil, all caps, about 0.7 mm high
If I could write that small with a pencil i'd be showing it off too.
Also one in downtown Detroit, passed it on the way to lunch on Friday... was odd cause I've walked that way before and never noticed it... will have to go back and take a look. At the corner of Randolph and Congress I think (on the south corner of Congress at the intersection).
Ohhhhhhhh, okay. I can see where this is going. The hinting in the article isn't that subtle. I know what he wants to hear:
Decades ago, black helicopters appeared in major cities, where, apparantly piloted by Elvis, buzzed about performing their clandestine duties. Bigfoot was seen installing the tiles. A fact corroborated by Oliver Stone, David Duchovny, and an unknown third witness on the grassy knoll.
A little known fact, and related I might add, is that of the existence of the COA -- the the Central Obfuscation Ageny. And agency which has wiped clean about all the evidence that this ever happened, as well as the evidence of UFOs, cheap hydrogen from water, the Cowboyneal option, and has made the evidence of cold fusion look like nothing more than a poorly measured chemical reaction.
-Frd
It has a picture of a much larger tile with some sort of manifesto written in it, next to the standard Toynbee tile. (This picture is also visible from the picture gallery for the original article.)
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
The tiles are a Thetan technology to maintain and increase their subjucation of the human race.
http://www.toynbee.net/
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
See also David Mamet's play "Four A.M.".
It's good that you've mentioned that paving slab in the Dompatz and the big demo, whatnot, etc.
We'd all forgotten about it.
A Good Intro to NetBS
He honestly thinks one person did all these, travelling around the world.
Clearly this originated from a small group of people, or one, but now is as much of a copycat effort as crop circles are.
The toynbee idea has some merit, but this xenu bullshit?! Those scientologists are crazy bastards.
CityBeat article
Again, I rarely have anything to contribute (hey, I'm an artist) to /., but I've seen these things before. This particular one is at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 40th Street in Manhattan.
Toynbee Tile here
there are sort of similar tilings, predominantly in europe, although i believe the guy (invader) who is responsible for them is currently in NY... although these aren't "profound" statements, they are really well done mosaic tiles of little space invaders!
you can check it out here. for fellow londoners who are interested...i, personally, have seen two in london. one on brick lane outside vibe bar and one in the notting hill area on some bridge that the carnival goes over - dunno which one, i live in the seeouthhhhh.
While the thickness of the tile is obviously unknown, the article says the the tiles are approximately 5x11 inches. This is within 2% of having a 4:9 ratio. Of course this is only for the one tile in the story. The picture of a tile from DC (in the pictures linked to from below the one picture in the main article) looks to be more along the lines of a 4:7 ratio, though, so it was possibly just a coincidence with the one tile.
you probably mean infrasound
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
A little googling reveals that couple a years ago one journalist tracked possible responsibility for the tiles down to one "verna sevrino", who he was ultimately unable to contact, even though he had an address in philadelphia.
google turns up a funeral home in philadelphia called "verna sevrino funeral home", hmmm what might a funeral home have to do with resurrecting people on mars?
more googling turns up philadelphia councilwoman Anna C. Verna, who is married to " husband, Severino Verna, a funeral director, were born and raised in South Philadelphia.".
And finally, everything you ever wanted to know about Anna C Verna is here I, for one, welcome our new neptune resurrectionist overlord.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
It's surprising that the author didn't do enough research to realize that Dave Bowman is resurrected in Clarke's later book 3001 - The Final Odyssey. Seems like that is a link to the ressurrection theme of the tiles.
This world never learns that vandalism is not art.
Did this scentence strike anybody else as odd?
Though Toynbee and Kubrick were both brilliant British visionaries...
Hmmm. Talk about thorough journalism...Stanley Kubrick was born in The Bronx, New York City.
I did a google on "toynbee tile". Some of the hits are web pages referencing Toynbee with the word "tile" randomly inserted here and there. For example, http://www.victorianlondon.org/education/toynbee.h tm has "They welcomed, therefore, tile proposal for a settlement"
Hemos, why'd you pass it through as "Space"? OK, so there's a 2001 reference, so wouldn't "Movies" make more sense?
Given the serious slashdotting the cites sites have experienced, "Quickies" is right out. And were they accessible, they'd probably be mildly amusing, so perhaps "Entertainment" or "It's Funny. Laugh" should be the way to go. With so many links, you could've set it to "Links" or any number of other categories which aren't used anymore.
But space?
Has anyone geo cached the tiles? These tiles sound interesting enough that I would take a geo hunt to find some.
http://www.geocaching.com/
It's in my shower and states: "Toynbee says stop doing that or you'll go blind." Oh, not that type of tile? My bad ... but who put that there then?
Aych tea tea pea colon slash slash slash dot dot org slash
The author of the editorial piece is an idiot. 2010 was not a "regrettable" sequel to 2001.
In book form, 2010 was a lot more fun and moved at a much better pace than the book form of 2001.
The movie 2010, while retaining some embarrasing 80's cold-war trappings, is still quite excellent. The usage of actual Voyager imagery to create the jovian system was quite clever, and well done. They didn't go overboard on special effects. The plot was "mostly" the same as the book, but you can't fault 2010 for differing when 2001 was so majorly different from the book as well.
Now if he were talking about 3001, then I'd agree on his statement of a "regrettable sequel"...
I'm chalking this one up to the Discordians and Operation Mindfuck. Sometimes it's best to enjoy a moment of WTF? absurdity, smile and move on.
I looked at the other posts and decided my subject didn't differentiate my post from people with pointers to toynbee.net
Can't you see it? Its so very simple. The "evidence" points to a now deceased man Morasco. Look at the last three letters in his name!
Its all a plot I tell you! SCO is out to control our minds!
Where's my tin foil hat?
sad robot making broken music
RTFA, This isn't anything new to report here.
Do any of you schmucks even realise that Arthur C. Clarke, NOT STANLEY KUBRICK wrote the flippin' book the movie is based on??? so the question is whether or not A.C.C knew about the bricks. Now go read 2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001 The final Odyssey. Phear my super sci-fi knowledge!!!!!!!!
Toynbee? Uniminds? Haunted Houses?
SlashDot is looking more like Omni Magazine all the time...
...www.toynbee.net seems to have been slashdotted... but... have any new tiles appeared in the USA since Sept. 11th, 2001? Seems like a reasonable test of our homeland security measures, since installing the tiles would seem to be both a conspicuous and suspicious act.
Let's hope that terrorists don't find out about this and start embedding WMD's in our pavements.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The point of the haitch on the end of "Pittsburgh" is surely so you can correct British people who might expect it to be pronounced "Pittsborough" {cf. Edinburgh} .....
"Why havent you learned anything? Its all there!It's all there in toynbee in those books on the shelf! Suppression breeds violence! You're gonna raise the curfew an hour? Would you look outside! You see that kid? Last week he just wanted to get laid, now he wants to kill somebody!"
A couple of groups have sampled this for various tracks... it's pretty cool, i think, i've not turned up a source with some basic googling.
ok, so this is probably entirely OT. sorry.
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
In Johnstown Pennsylvania, a town known for its historic flood, there is a plaque on a building that says "In the year on this spot, nothing happened".... I forget the year, but I thought it was funny none-the-less. (I have a picture of it somewhere).
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
So I've been avoiding reading for class by checking out Slashdot. I finally get around to reading this Victor Turner article "The Anthropology of Performance" and who is mentioned in the first paragraph? Arnold Toynbee. weird.
According to Turner, Toynbee is the person who coined the term "postmodern." Very weird.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
If there is such a thing as the antichrist, and he does show up, it won't matter much if you believe in him or not.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
They are made of "epoxy or super hard plastic that's actually inlaid in the asphalt itself."
Either that or they are painted on with the paint that is used for roads (to make dividing lines).
has anyone tried digging one out and seeing what it's really made of? I mean, it's fun to speculate, but that's what the stock market's for, right?
And he requested another 87 billion on TV last night!
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
We all know the truth -- these Toynbee tiles are merely optical illusions created by infrasound...
(You know, I didn't mean for that to sound so Zippy-the-Pinhead-ish...)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Art students havethe skills and access to the kind of equipment and materials to pull something like this off. (Although, to undermine my own point, I don't think that they need to be 'inlaid.' It could just be mashed down.)
How many "Andre the Giant has a Posse" stickers have you seen? This might be a higher tech version of that.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
A related topic, when on holiday in the south of France earlier this year (Montpelier) I noticed on several street corners there were 16x16 mosaic tile grids of two (but varying from motfi to motif) colours used to make a logo of a space invader (exactly the same graphic as the original space invader). No one knew who had put them there or what they were for. I must have seen about 10 in the time I was there... All about 10ft in the air, so must've needed some time and a ladder.. No text though.. Homage to this guy or something altogether less sinister... I guess I'll never know.... Unless.....
There was a rash of unauthorized (and illegal) Andy Warhol stamp made and used by his friends. The whole thing is a large performance arts excercise, to see how far and much the US Postal is willing to accept this unauthorized stamp. Surprisingly, US Postal isn't aware of this illegal stamp until it was pointed out to them.
Once fnord you begin to fnord actively fnord notice visual fnord clues they fnord show up everywhere fnord. It's fnord sort of like fnord what happens when fnord you buy fnord a new car. All of fnord a sudden you fnord notice that fnord lots of people are fnord driving the same fnord car, more than fnord you ever noticed fnord before.
Um, did I miss the "information" in that "+5 Informative" post?! Nothing there man. Nada. "-1 Redundant"
This is INCREDIBLE and everyone who lives close to one of these tiles should rip it of the ground to see what's under it: The sentence is an anagram... this is what you do: 1) Take the first letter of each sentence in "Toynbee Ideas in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect Dead On Planet Jupiter" and remember to make 2001 into words as well (two thousands and one.) You should have "tiikttaordopj" 2) Since this is an anagram, we put the word "anagram" at the end, so now we have "tiikttaordopj anagram" (this step is often done as the anagram makers often add the anagram word, for some reason) 3) Scramble the letters correctly, and you get the answer: "Kit atop trojan diagram" So the tile (the kit) is atop of a "trojan diagram"??? I would look under one of those tiles ASAP!
I did it.
You gotta be kidding me. I was going to suggest that it must be some nuts; clearly we don't have anybody like that running around the world right now.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
There are at least two in Indianapolis - One on the west side of Meridian Street at Georgia and another on the east side of Meridian Street at Maryland.
This book, AFAIKT, has absolutely nothing to do with Toynbee tiles...
I know they've been here for a while, but I've always thought of them as "that weird stuff on Smithfield Street" -- I never thought this was part of a larger bit if lunacy.
Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!
The first thing that came to mind when reading the article was that we've at last found Markoff Chaney, or the Mad Fishmonger, and that perhaps they're the same person.
The Chaney gambit is similar to the social engineering tactics used recently to walk out the door of a crowded Australian airport with a or rackmount storage system. The Slashdot postings there showed numerous anecdotes, all to the effect of "You can do anything and go anywhere as long as you're wearing coveralls".
The difference is that the Toynbee Tile Dude(s? ttes?) is doing it for his own motivations, the likes of which we can never guess.
There were 3 of these tiles on Smithfield street. The street was repaved last month and they are now gone.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...has a posse.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
That was apparently by design.
...) which explained that he purposefully worked to get very little depth-of-field on his shots for that Movie so that it would resemble a painting. He used some sort of experimental camera, and even went to the effort of shooting from far, far away and zooming in.
I saw a Kubrick documentary (perhaps it was "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures"
this sort of reminds me of another pop-art phenomenon, sheppard fairy's "andre the giant" posters. Giant Posse. the project is to make people think by creating an "advertisement selling no product" or placing something where there shouldn't be anything, and seeing what meaning people put on it. thats sort of what this reminds me of: art in a place where art usually isn't, creating all kinds of questions as to what it is and how it got there.
a genuinely funny comment on /., and *I* had nothing to do with it.
If you had an IQ warmer than room temperature, you'd realize he was being ironic and thus his comment was funny.
n won't-get-the-joke-and-put-up-stupid-'I-must-be-st upid'-comments.
Not "ha-ha-ha-I'm-showing-my-teeth" funny, but more of a "smile-quietly-to-yourself-knowing-that-some-moro
You're welcome!
Infrasound, dummy.
Maybe toyenbee.net does this, but it's slashdotted.
But has anyone investigated if the actual locations of the tiles are meaningful? You know how on murder mysteries, they connect the dots of the locations the killer struck and it is always a clue?
Also, why can't they figure out what this stuff is made from? I mean, can't they go get a chunk of one and figure it out? Clearly it holds up better than the current paving solutions...
T.
The first rule of Project Mayhem is to not ask questions.
... would be to find a way to covertly plant one of these on Mars, for some unmanned (manned?) explorer to find. That'll mess with their heads
Two Rules For Success:
1) Never tell people everything you know.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've seen one on Pratt St., I think it was, in Baltimore. Can't remember exactly where. But I really didn't think much about it because I've seen plenty of other weird stuff here, particularly street signs!
There was a blue one with white lettering that said only "Clean your house". There were a couple of optical illusion signs - black squares in a grid with a "Do you see spots at the intersection?" caption located appropriately at an intersection, and parallel lines with hash marks at different angles so they don't look parallel. Most recently I saw a sign that said "Deer ticks thrive on field mice. Field mice thrive on acorns."
Very bizarre stuff. Any of these floating around other cities?
Remember that 2001 also didn't have any clue worth noticing? And that you were afraid that you were the only one missing the clue? And that that was the reasone why nobody dared to say it was crap? And that it became a famous movie just because of that?
I see a pattern here!
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
That'll send the Scientology rats scurrying.
Ok, none of the articles linked in this thread mention when the whole thing started. When did people spot the first?
I've been on a 2-month backpacking trip around the United States in 1993. Back then, I took a photograph of one of these tiles located on a street in Washington DC. I still have the photograph and will scan it for the guy at toynbee.net.
However, I don't remember where in DC the tile was. (Being a regular tourist who doesn't write down the address of every odd object I photographed.)
I remember being very strangely amused about the tile that noone else but me seemed to notice. I had been a fan of Clarke's novel and the movie long before and it was eery that even just this single line of text contained so much weirdness.
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
something about this guy's language and grammar reminds me of gene ray, of timecube.com fame...
> you act like your disgust is normal.
I'll have to keep that line in mind for the next time I accidentally let one rip in an elevator. "Dry heaves? Bah! You act like your disgust is normal!"
...with links to articles: tiles
and all I could push back in time was these lousy tiles.
> This world never learns that vandalism is not art.
Vandalism, art, spaghetti. It's all the same -- it's an expression. Just because you don't "get it" does not mean it's not valid. It portrays the "artist's" feelings, which is what art is all about.
to read more go here then scroll down to the post by Justin K.
Here in Hamburg, we have OZ, our very own local weirdo. According to two similar newspaper articles from last year (article 1, article 2), he is in his 50s and made more than 120.000 graffiti tags around the city, nothing could stop him yet.
He was first known for spraying smileys everywhere - road signs, car wheels, everywhere he could find something round. It was cute at first, but he sprayed everywhere. He later started spraying his "oz" tag and there is virtually no public space without his tag all over Hamburg, a major German city. You can find miles and miles of small "oz oz oz oz oz" carefully sprayed on subway walls, he climbs buildings to tag the roofs...
Oz is presumed to be a mental case. He has no income, lives on welfare, the only thing he does is graffiti and even while on trials, he was caught several times when tagging. He usually tries to escape the officers who catch him by beating them up.
He has appeared to court with a sign "I am a Jew" and has now begun spraying "policemen are Nazis" or "subway watchmen are Nazis" and simple "Stop the Nazis" graffitis - again, everywhere all over town.
It's somewhat embarassing: I had US visitors in Hamburg recently and had a hard time explaining to them that all these "Stop Nazis" graffitis are in fact the work of a weirdo who declared the people trying to stop him "Nazis", not of concerned citizens afraid of a new rise of the neo-fascists.
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
It's full of stars?
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
The Toynbee tiles are common vinyl floor tiles with the letters carved out using a stencil of sorts. This explains the awkward angles and other design features typical of papercut letters in children's construction paper projects.
As for how they're baked into the street, this is simple also. You'll notice most of the Toynbee Tiles are placed in busy inner city intersections with plenty traffic. In [U.S.] cities streets are often fixed with small patches of asphalt covering just the worst cracks and potholes. Who notices a new black patch on the road? Well, the Toynbee feller knows nobody does.
So his secret is this. He carves the tiles, then wraps them neatly in a parcel of layers of tar paper and wood glue with the tile at the very bottom. This slim dark parcel can be fairly inconspicously placed on the street in the dark of night. It'll resemble just another patch of road repair.
It's important that the parcel be placed about as far from the curb so as to get run over by the street traffic as often as possible, because the 'baking' process is actually just the combination of pressure and weather over a period of a couple of weeks where the combined forces of pressure, weather and sun erodes the paper until just some of the tar remains, which is forced into the street and around the spaces between the tile letters, which are gradually revealed as the tar above wears away. The finished impression a couple of weeks later is that just the letters themselves remains, forced thoroughly into the street.
The tile by itself would have cracked and never survived if it had been just left there on the surface. The tar paper sandwich is quite ingenious and simple to make, though it probably takes a few tries to get the formula just right.
It seemed like a good idea to make these tiles, but then there are always those ideas that seem perfect when you're baked...
Maybe I should have just said no to the brownies and yes to the beer...
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Could be, Could be. But as they say, there's a seeker born every minute.
- Travels in the Eastern US, with emphasis on Northeast cities
- B&P members, when going abroad, tend to go to latin american countries -- where have the tiles
been sighted overseas? Chile, Brazil. Places to look next -- Nicaragua, Hondouras, DR
- Typography is almost identical on Toynbee Tiles and the block-printed leaflets and posters B&P print
- Phraseology is very similar to those used on B&P leaflets and posters: cryptic announcements,
incomplete sentences, etc.
- Ideology is consistent: the use of street theatre as a tool of waking up peoples' ideas,
references to "Resurrection" and history, decline of civilisations, so forth.
- When I saw the picture of the tile, I could swear I saw something exactly like it
on one of the B&P leaflets or posters, not the last time I was in Glover, but on one of their
trips to Ithaca, NY
Therefore, I think it would be worth a trip to Glover, Vermont to have a peek through their archives, if there are any Toynbee Tiles Obsessives up in that area. It's just a hunch. Listen to your real gas music from Jupiter on the way.Does this mean if I shoot some punk spray paining my house I killed and artist. No
Vandalism is not art, asstast.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
I am one of the people quoted in that article. Mr. Stoehr never actually contacted me, and the quote is entirely fabricated. Calibrate your trust in the rest of the article accordingly.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 17:36:37 -0400
Subject: Toynbee Mystrey Solved!...(almost.)
Hello, my name is Justin K*H* and I am sending you this to let you know of my research into the "Toynbee Idea" phenomenon. I have been obsessively photographing & documenting these tiles since around 1992-'93, when I first started noticing them. I have a very extensive collection of photographs, but this is not my reason for contacting you. My reason in sending this E mail is to let you know that I have figured out EXACTLY how these tiles are "made & glued". You see, sometime this past winter I left my house on a mission to my lacal convinience store for a late Sunday night snack (about 4:00 A.M.,so perhaps "early morning snack would be more appropriate wording.) On my way back to the house I noticed a black mound in the street which had made it's appearance there sometime in the 10 minute period that I was in the store. Upon closer inspection I discovered it to be a mound of tar paper, intermingled with what appeared to be wood glue. Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I lifted the top layer to see what may lay underneath----a "TOYNBEE IDEA" TILE!!!!!( This was discovered at 12th. & Race ST. in Philadelphia, if you want to add it to your sightings list.) Needless to say, I examined the tile for quite a while, my heart racing all the while, knowing that I had missed catching the "mad tiler" by only a matter of minutes. Here are my findings - The tiles are indeed that - tiles. If you heat a standard floor tile it will rubberize and become as easy to cut as butter. But when it hardens it will not be able to withstand the pressure afforded it by car tires as it will be too brittle (I have tried making my own tiles, as you can infer.) However this tile was some kind with a higher rubber content than a standard floor tile, and therefore able to absorb greater weight and shock. It's inlayed letters were of a slightly less malleable substance, but were held in place neatly, even if they were to crack, by the white tile which surrounded them. All of this intricate stencil-esque tile work appeared to have been done with an X-acto knife or razor blade, judging by the angle of the cuts and my own failed attempts with cutting letters into standard floor tiles. The tile was sandwiched between thick layers of intricately folded and glued together tar paper. The effects of the weather(the paper decays, but the tar remains behind as an anchor to affix the tile to the street) and passing cars(they serve as the force which squashes the tile into - literally INTO - the street. Over the course of the next few days I took a series of detailed photos which display the entire process visually. I hope my explanation of all of this is understandable, and I apologize for typos ( I am in a rush. ) Anyways, I hope this gives you some sense of satisfaction as to at least HOW these "plaques" are made.
P.S. I checked out that Philly adress from the Rio tile - no luck, although I did find a SLEW of Toynbee tiles in the surrounding South Philly neighborhood. (Rather unusual for the tiles to be seen in such a residential neighborhood!) 9th. & Shunk St. is the only specific one I can think of off the top of my head. There are three tiles there which have to be seen to be believed. O.K......Put up my sightings & mention my findings! Thank You, Justin K*H*
I had a book on my shelf once. It explained all about these things and their supernatural origins. I didn't buy the book, it just appeared one day.
AT&ROFLMAO
It was Frank Chu!! While traveling through the 12 Galaxies (you know, trying to Impeach Clinton), he had a chance to embed these tablets into the street using his secret Sigmogonic devices. He had to be cryptic with his messages, since he was being chased by Quintronic Criminals, who are dangerous with their Alphogonic Attempted Murders.
Are we absolutely sure this is not another MSN/Butterfly thing?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Yes, it does. And _you_ should be shot if you think shooting and killing someone for vandalism is justified!
Then there was this other guy who put up signs everywhere with pictures of sammy davis jr. on them. I heard his story. He was like in a battle with the tobacco kills guy, and would take down the tobacco kills signs and put up sammy signs. Theres more stories about it but its just wierd.
About 5 years ago, the words "Soma Irot" were found in many places in and around the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh... Oakland, Shadyside, Squirel Hill. I imagine some remain, as chalk tends to amazingly do on vertical surfaces.
"Soma Irot" backwards is "Tori Amos" and apparantly the name of a band... but unknown if the band is related to the pittsburgh scrawlings.
This all sounds good and fine, but I just don't see ordinary tile lasting that long in those conditions--even if it's embedded in the street. Anyone have any further insight?
Then enlighten us, oh great and wise one. You obviously know the answer to a question that has frustrated the great artists and philosophers alike: "What is art?"
I've seen these "tiles" (they look more like thick linoleum) embedded in midtown Manhattan's asphalt since the early 90s.
When I first noticed them, I thought "street artist." We have many here, so a sighting of something like this is not that unusual. Look like they're cut with a linoleum knife, too.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Admit it. You laid those tiles, didn't you?
42!! omg lolz
I celebrated the beginning of the 21'st century....
and all I got was this lousy toynbee tile!
- "They misunderestimated me."
it sounded interesting until I looked at a picture of it.
Looks like a piece of crap. unless a 5th grader made this it deserves no attention.
And if a 5th grader did - good job.
Try it. Go to a hardware store and check out the tiles. There are many different kinds.
Now that the story has hit the mass media (come on, Slashdot _IS_ a Mass Media) I am sure people around the world will imitate and create their own tilings all over the world. At least I have considered the idea, I am sure other will not just consider it but actually do it.
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
Last time I checked you'd have to have over 500 billion to 'buy out' Microsoft. Though I imagine that the interest off a trust of $90B (about $1B/year) could do a whole lot of good for the OSS community.
I was thinking that there ought to be an OSS 'general' fund with a small board who would award prizes on the interest from the account each year. The fund would only grow over time as the spending would be limited by the interest it bore. Right now even [the chance of] several hundred dollars would be incentive for many otherwise distracted developers to contribute.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Art and vandalism can certainly coexist.
I've certainly seem some carefully crafted, beautiful graffiti that the artist regrettably chose to place on someone else's property without permission. That it's illegal and messes with someone else's property doesn't invalidate that it is also art.
Similarly you can engage in political speech and do something illegal at the same time. Burning draft cards was both illegal and a political statement. Hitting someone with a cream pie can be both assault and speech. Destruction of property (Say, dumping a bunch of tea in a harbor) can be intended as a political message.
Mind you, that someone is making art or engaging in political speech doesn't justify the crime! I can both appreciate the quality of some skilled graffiti while simultaneously wishing that the artist would get caught for damaging someone else's property. I'd rather the artist had not chosen to do so. But to deny that it could be art is just silly.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Good googling. I get one James Morasco at anybirthday.com, born 1938, CT zip code.
Would you believe when I read that this morning, I took you seriously? I wondered why the guy would make lewd jokes in addition to his weird agenda.
Here I am, two Dr. Peppers later, and I finally get it. :)
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
From the article: "To do this would require a lot of prep. You'd have to heat the road surface. You'd have to have special equipment. An operation like this would take some time and if you wanted to avoid being seen while you were installing something like this it would require some planning. Whoever did this has fairly sophisticated know-how."
Also from the article: "You say you first saw this seven years ago?" she asked incredulously. She stared at the tile and shook her head. "I work just a few blocks away and I've never even noticed it."
Some guy could've taken ALL AFTERNOON to do this, and no-one would pay even the slightest bit of attention to what was happening around them. People are self-absorbed, almost no-one pays any attention to things around them, even things that are out of the ordinary. When was the last time you saw someone even turn their head when a car alarm went off?
This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
I never knew what it was until I read this article. One of these was present in front of the Burger King at Jackson and Wabash in downtown Chicago. The last time I was at this location was late 2001, so it may have worn away since (it wasn't in good shape even then).
If anyone can confirm if it is still there, I would be curious to know!
Scott
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
I went and found two out of the three listed in St. Louis. One was obviously destroyed as the pavement at that location is being resurfaced as we speak.
I turned them both into virtual caches, pending approval.
Googling reveals strange ties to Brazil.
1 week for a moderately crazy slashdotter to learn tile making...
1 week to pick a location...
1 day to case the location and pick a perfect time...
roughly 4 days for a weekend to roll around with less traffic and a day off...
Hence I predict the exponential growth of Street Tiles between 16 and 19 days from today. These tiles will be placed on all continents except Antarctica...as the singe road does not have traffic or any discernable heat.
Mystery of tiles are solved - they are created by computer geeks from the year 2003 that traveled back in time to place the earlier tiles.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
And I am posting from Singapore!
> Does this mean if I shoot some punk spray paining my house I killed [an] artist[?]
Yes and no. Who are you to say he isn't an artist? In my mind, everyone is at least part-artist. For you to say he isn't is a form of attempting thought control. Not to mention murder, but I'd want to kill him too for spraypainting my house. But he's not spray-painting your house, is he? No, he's usually spray-painting public space. If you catch him, knock him out in 1 hit & call the police. Tell them he fell down & bumped his head while vandalizing your property. They'd be more than happy to cart him off for you.
Koeln, huh? I think I've met your mayor.
I wondered if they were connected with the nearby American Visionary Art Museum, which mostly collects work by crazy people. ;-) IIRC, they were in front of the Shane's across from the Omni (home of Balticon).
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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You think protesting an outrageous tax from a tyrant "doesn't justify the crime"?
Your love of government has taken your common sense.