Slashdot Mirror
Dead Geek Icons Hitchhiking Across USA
pacopico writes "The Register has a mammoth story on a weird art/technology project. An artist has created five life-size wooden figures of Silicon Valley pioneers such as Hewlett and Packard and Intel founder Bob Noyce. These figures are supposed to hitchhike around the country and make their way from the East Coast to Silicon Valley. They're outfitted with GPS tracking systems, and you can watch them move via the web. It's all part of the ZeroOne art and science festival taking place next week in San Jose."
This is a beautifully weird idea. It serves no real purpose except to have some fun and see what happens.
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
No, but there will be regular updates when ever one of these figures move.
From TFA: Many of you CEOs and top engineers out there are no doubt wondering - am I willing to be made out of wood? Well, you might not have any choice should Mike Mosher, Julie Newdoll, Jim Pallas and Mario Wolczko hear of your accomplishments.
Given Mr. Ballmer's accomplishments as a CEO and now Acting Chair-man, he's sure to be nominated for the honour. It would be a waste of good wood however, one feels, given his bulk. Would a Wooden Chair be a good enough substitute?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
So Penthouse letters can get a few entries.
"Dear Penthouse Letters, I know you'll never believe this, but I was driving to work, when I saw Ron Jeremy hitchhiking. After I pulled over to the shoulder, I could see he was VERY excited to see me, a 5' 10", 140 lbs. blonde woman with huge breasts, and my bi-curious Asian girlfriend Mia, who just had breast augmentation surgery as well. We had just opened up a second bottle of tequila when "wooden" Ron, in more ways than one!, got in the back seat with Mia.
Turing Zombie barely supressing groans of "Brains" as, picked up from along a dead stretch of road in the middle of New Mexico, he grunts in the direction of New England right as part of his right cheek falls off.
"Did you see a sign that said Dead Geek Transportation? No? Do you know why you didn't see a sign that said Dead Geek Transportation?... ...BECAUSE THERE IS NO SIGN! Now put that wooden cutout back on the side of the road so we can have a little room in the back seat again."
"We tried to pick people that were really on the ground floor of developing Silicon Valley," said Newdoll. This conflicts with the story of RealDoll, who claimed it was on the ground floor at the time.
Forget this. In memorial.
I hitchhiked the length and breadth of Ireland as a teenager. In other for these inanimate hitchers to have a genuine experience, drivers should live up to their obligations and:
- Inaudibly admonish/curse at them through the windshield.
- Stop 10 feet away and then wheelspin away at the last moment, veering wildly.
- Swing planks of wood out of the passenger window at high speed in an effort to decapitate the hitchers (I made the mistake of hitching outside Limerick City *once*).
- Drive them to some mountainous vista, stop the car, and lecture them for 1 hour about the end of the world (I made the mistake of taking a lift from a Jehova Witness *once*).
- Make signs indicating that they are going in impossible directions (i.e. taking a left turn off a precipitous 12 mile mountain pass).
It's a dead practice in Ireland now, which saddens me. Anyway those hitchers should NOT make it to wherever they're going. For one thing, they can't duck.
Remember, Remember the 18th of September
Semiconductor, treason and plot,
I see no reason why the Traitorous Eight,
Should ever be forgot...
It's just a matter of time before the FBI shows up at somebody's house, to retrieve the hitch-hikers, and finds that Noyce has spent a week as a coat rack, that packard is now at the door, acting as a "greeter", and hewlet is now an integral ocmponent in the drunken game of "throw the NASCAR cap on fancy-pants' head"
While I agree these guys should get more recognition, this is a mighty weird way to do it. Here's some ways they might appreciate: (1) Build a 20 times size working HP 200 Audio Oscillator (HP's first product)-- Tubes the size of phone booths. Variable capcitors that could slice a whole cow... 20-ton transformers. 5Kw pilot light. (2) Take up a collection to shoot their ashes into space. (3) Start a really good HP museum.
Does this remind anyone else of the garden gnomes that get snagged and photographed around the world?
Support a true independent artist - Leila Lopez
"I don't know what I like, but I know what art is"
This IS art. I wish I'd thought of it!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Only on slashdot, gets a comment about running over, steling and shooting a wooden model of Steve Ballmer, a +5 insightful mod :D
They need to get a day job
Why?
and make their regularly schedule appointments to their mental health doctors.
I pity you in your drab world.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
He wooden stay still
sorry, never mind...
Is a 'Dead Geek Icon' something I can have on the screen of my PeeCee and when I click it a geek somewhere dies?
Or is this 'Icon' in the correct sense: a small framed work of art from eastern Europe somehow associated with a dead geek?
In the early 1990s, I picked up a weird old guy, with long hair/beard and fingernails but exremely clean, in the late dark of night in the Santa Cruz (CA) mountains. He wanted a ride to the beach, so I took him over on my way home. He was pretty quiet at first, but as we passed the airport on US1 outside Half Moon Bay he started talking aircraft. And movies - he knew all these backstories from the "Golden Age", up until the mid 1960s. When we got to politics, he muttered "Nixon" and clammed up again. I dropped him off and lost him in the dunes near the pier. He was the most articulate and most fastidious bum I ever picked up, so I thought about him from time to time after that.
Boy was I surprised to see Leonardo Di Caprio playing him in a movie on cable this Spring.
--
make install -not war
This have been done in Sweden by some school kids back in the 90s. They sent a doll on a trip around Sweden, and asked people to send post cards from where they found the doll as well as asked them to give it a ride or otherwise transport it along to a new place.
The money spent on this bullshit should go to feed the poor! Fucking kids can't have MySpace because money is being spent on this shit. Fucking feed the poor!
Apparently Jack Kilby, the inventor of the Integrated Circuit, upon which
ALL computers rely, was left out. Pity.
What? No towel jokes yet? Slashdotters must be slacking.
After reading the title, I thought for a brief moment that real zombie geeks were actually outside and walking..
As the Hitch Hikers' creator, I engraved them with a number registered with http://www.fineartregistry.com/ that tracks ownership status. Check it out. If they go missing, the site lists them as stolen. Also the http://www.artloss.com/ list accepts notice of stolen (or lost) artworks. So selling them is problematic. Furthermore, individuals picking them up and helping them on their way are rewarded with a share of ownership in the artwork. I don't expect they will spend much time on the shoulder of a road. All this is explained in the article you didn't feel like reading.
Bingo! Unitron nailed it. Along with the 2 other artists, we argued into the metaphorical night about which five we should celebrate. We looked long and hard ( no Ron Jeremy reference intended ) for a non-white, non-male Silicon Valley pioneer but the tide of the times, early 20th century, didn't permit it. One of the many reasons we picked Noyce and not Kilby was he died before the Nobel was awarded, but mainly it was the Valley connection. DeForest, same reason, prevailed. But also he was a pioneer in telecommunication, which, surprise, surprise, turns out to be one of the biggest consequences of the new technology. Also, I loved the photo of Lee with his bicycle clipped pant legs and backwards aviators cap, squinting into the sun, on which I based the sculpture.
Before you sing the praises of de Forest too loudly, see if you can find a copy of "Man of High Fidelity:Edwin Howard Armstrong" by Lawrence Lessing.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.