Slashdot Mirror
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Brings Boston to a Halt
An anonymous reader writes "An ad campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force featuring the Mooninites Ignignot and Err caused major security concerns in Boston, MA when magnetic light displays were mistaken for possible bombs. The displays included one of Ignignot flipping the bird (as hard as he could), but Gov. Deval Patrick was not amused."
Think what would happen if administrators in vegas turned paranoid of every blinking light. I can understand checking on it, even applaud it despite the oddity of it all, but I dont understand why anyone would be irate when it turned out to be nothing.
Ice Cream has no bones.
...it only took a hours to blow up a LiteBrite but it took weeks to respond to a devastating hurricane?
The article says they got worried when they saw the wires and circuit boards. The knowledgable terrorist will doubtless package his payload in a fashionable briefcase now that he has been alerted to this penchant.
Damn you Aqua Teen Hunger Force! You have DOOMED America!
"Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it can creep."
-from "What It's Worth" -Buffalo Springfield
And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs, disguised as creepy little advertisements, and the police ignored them? Never mind the damage and loss of life, people would be bitching to high heaven about police and government incompetence.
The bottom line is, in times like these and in a major city like Boston, you have to take everything seriously.
Look at the pictures posted of one of these things - they have a row of D-batteries covered in duct tape. It looks very much like a bomb with a stupid figurine on them. And these things were found in somewhat suspicious locations - on the side of a bridge's concrete support columns, for instance. It's reasonable to expect the police react with suspicion after seeing a strange, jury-rigged little electronic device under a bridge.
This space intentionally left blank.
It really makes me sick that we're at the point where people mistake everyday things for bombs and have homeland security called in. I can't even ride my universities bus holding a wired up circuit board (for a class) without people looking at me like I'm about to blow them up.
Yeah you're right, explosives can be hidden in almost anything. So, the logical conclusion is to knock down all buildings, and bulldoze the entire city completely flat so that anything suspicious will stand out. And you'll have to put the people somewhere else too. Simply making them go naked won't work, since they tend to carry illegal things in their bums.
There's being cautious and there's being retarded.
Yes, because in Soviet America, anything outside normal trains of thought is illegal.
And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs, disguised as creepy little advertisements, and the police ignored them? Never mind the damage and loss of life, people would be bitching to high heaven about police and government incompetence.
You're right. If I ever need to blow up a bridge or something, I'll make sure not to disguise the bomb as a discarded cardboard box. Instead I'll make it flash wildly, so nobody notices.
The "You have to take all threats seriously" argument presupposes that either (a) wildly blinking objects with bird-flipping aliens on them are significantly more potentially dangerous than common refuse, or (b) any piece of common refuse should be treated as a threat and lead to bridge shutdowns and bomb squads and pissed-off governors. I can't see either of these being true (though the second one sure would help with the litter problem).
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
This is just pitiful. I'm ashamed to live in a country that overreacts like this (mostly in the government and media). I would seriously question the competency of a police department that did anything like this. I can understand a little questioning, but "safety detonations" and area lockdowns because of something flashing a led image of a character, what's next. The scariest thing is its not an isolated incident, grounding a plane because someone found an Ipod in a toilet, people being pulled aside because they have too much radiation in their blood (from medical treatments), the probably daily "safety detonations" of peoples lunches, briefcases, and backpacks that we usually don't hear about. Excuse me a moment I need to go and smash my head against a blunt object to get rid of the voices screaming how their are too many idiots on the planet.
Well, they got their money's worth on this advertising campaign!
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
I live in Boston, and I can say that the day was very tense.
Why? Because the media put out a big scare story that turned out to be nothing?
which you'd expect no matter what when dealing with batteries and unknown electronics in a sneaky location in a heavy traffic area
Maybe you should just stop paying attention to every little scare mongering story that gets released. Personally I'd direct some attention over to the media outlets for publishing a story with no information, who's only result was to un-necessarily scare people. A few weeks ago it was a strange smell in NYC that everyone assumed was the work of terrorists. I'm sure there's about 20 other stories I'm missing because...I've stopped paying attention to these junk stories.
AccountKiller
" You have to take these all seriously, because who knows if they're threats or not?"
Well, I do. It's obvious that a beer sign, light bright, or flickery street light are not bombs, although you and apparently others in Boston don't know this.
" I'm mad as hell about this ad campaign because when it comes time to pay for all the police activity today, you can bet your ass Ted Turner won't offer to foot the bill."
He shouldn't foot the bill. Any jerk could tell those signs aren't bombs. Turner doesn't owe dick for the local po' being stupid and overreacting.
Please don't try to justify this pathetic overreaction. We've become a nation of fearful neurotic idiots.
If someone wants to blow up a bridge, they will blow it up. They can strap dynamite to their torso and hug support beams. They can drive an explosive-filled car into a stanchion. They can fill a boat with fertilizer and float underneath. No matter how much we freak out over nothing, no matter how many times we give up our rights, take off our shoes, and do other retarded inappropriate useless things.
Even if we were dealing with a coward terrorist who wasn't willing to commit his life, you wouldn't see something with wires and batteries sticking out. It'd be out of sight, or look like garbage.
It's such an irrational fear. How many people have been killed in the past hundred years in the US by little boxes with wires and batteries sticking out? How many have been killed by auto wrecks? It's jaw-droppingly lame, and it's getting worse. We'd be better off panicking about ceiling fans, lightning bolts, or bunions.
We don't even need terrorists anymore. All it takes to shut down a city is cowering, whimpering, losers afraid of their own shadow.
Man, you really need that seminar!
(as someone else posted) http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/tags/aquate enhungerforce/
Seriously if anything that looks suspicious with me. They placed the devices all over the city and didn't tell anyone? And they thought it was ok?
I'm sure the expense just with bomb squads and shutting down the interstate is beyond prohibitive (Trust me, I lived in Boston, shutting down any street in Boston = hell).
This sounds like something that cartoon network would do but hell if it isn't the type of stupid ass stuff that people aren't thinking about but can cause a major problem. Sounds like someone's getting a pink slip.
I saw this as I was coming into work this afternoon on our big screen (thank god for the military having most of their televisions permanently tuned to FOX NEWS for the "situational awareness" it provides...) and my jaw just dropped. It's really hitting me lately how much our country is changing, and there is very little that individuals can do about it. I feel like standing on top of a soap box and yelling at people till i'm blue in the face, but I know that's fruitless.
Wake up...
All your base are belong to Google.
Surprisingly only Boston had a problem with this when TFA mentions that these are up in 9 other cities. Likewise I've only heard Boston-based posters complaining about how this was irresponsible and something that obviously looked a lot like a bomb so it needed to be investigated.
And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs, disguised as creepy little advertisements, and the police ignored them?
Yeah, because our immaculately clean cities have such a serious shortage of more innocuous hiding places, right? Like, say, garbage... Why, I can't even recall the last time I saw a discarded beat-up large cardboard box while visiting Boston.
Hiding in plain sight might work well for ninjas, but we mere mortals should stick to diving for the closet or under the bed when the parents/jealous hubby/mormons come to the door.
The bottom line is, in times like these and in a major city like Boston, you have to take everything seriously.
No. "In times like [foo]" and "in places like [bar]" never count as a good reason. Every generation in the history of the planet, and every city to ever plague the face of the Earth, has believed that it had some magically unique set of trying circumstances.
"These times" represent more of a norm than an abberation therefrom. Get used to it, and just thank Zeus every day you don't live in the West Bank or Mosul or any of the abundance of other places we only know about because the daily news keeps reminding us of how much life there sucks.
Look at the pictures posted of one of these things - they have a row of D-batteries covered in duct tape.
Have you ever seen anything more "bomb-like" than an M-80?
A few D-battery-sized wads of high explosive, detonated in an open area (not the same as a shaped charge or a capped bore-hole!), would do nothing. Someone who happened to touch it at the moment of explosion might get killed, but it wouldn't do much better than that.
When you hear about suicide bombs going off in markets and mosques in Iraq, these involve large backpacks or even vehicles stuffed to the brim with explosives. And they still usually only manage to take out, in a crowd, a dozen people!
While the average Joe may believe what they see on CSI or 24 or whatever they have as the joke-of-a-cop-drama of the season, a real bomb-squad should have a hell of a lot better training than that.
This is just another case of a government with too much money and power. They are probably going to call this a "Terrorist Act". When I was younger, this would have been filed under prank; not under terroristic hoax which is what they were calling it all day. All they really needed was to get a public works guy with a knife to remove them. I read that the FBI detonated some of them. This is the same kind of twisted logic means that my wife cannot carry her mascara on the plane unless it is in a plastic bag, however I can carry my laptop on the plane; who knows what you could stuff in the battery and it would just breeze through airport screeners as a laptop.
It seems like everything these days that is out of the ordinary is now suspected to be terrorism. I thought republicans were for smaller more efficient government, not for overbearing, bloated, and stupid government. It is amazing how over the last 5 years; the feds managed to fuck up a perfectly good country.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs
What if? What if someone suddenly replaced the bridges with an exact replica only it wasn't a bridge, it was actually a chameleon nuclear bomb. And what if the police didn't notice? What then eh? What then?
The "what if" argument fails because it immediately deviates from the actual fact, into the fantasy realm of the author.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Kinda like when I was in High School and they banned backpacks (but not purses, which is a whole other story) from classrooms because bombs could be hidden in them, which, according to the administration, would make for a lot more effort for a bomb squad to find a bomb in case a bomb threat was called in. Of course, this just meant that the bombs would be left in lockers for the bomb squad to search, which I don't see as making things any easier. The high school wasn't being cautious, it was being retarded.
As some other people said, this is just a media event (unless of course, the people involved really are retarded). I hate to break it to people, but there is very little that we can do to stop dedicated terrorists, whether those terrorists are Muslim fundamentalists, the next Timothy McVeigh, or a group of teenagers who are pissed at their classmates. If we try to prevent terrorism from happening by jumping at shadows or taking away freedom, we aren't going to make any progress and will probably just create more terrorists. Does anyone else think that there will be a minor backlash of ATHF graffiti and copycat light ads now that this happened? Hell, I'd almost expect a terrorist to make a bomb in the shape of these ads, but that would be kinda counter productive because it would prove these security freaks right.
I know people modded you up as insightful, but really, logically speaking, 3. does not follow from 2. Just because A implies B does not mean that not A implies not B.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Maybe if the terrorists just toss a bunch of LED throwies at something they want destroyed, then Homeland Security will blow it up for them?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
There are places where it's normal to find LEDs, wires, and electronic components, such as, oh, say, on monitors, keyboards, mice, computers, cell phones, and so on. And then there are places where it's not normal to find electronics, such as on unrecognizable devices attached to bridges, and on subway walls.
There is normally no need to be unduly alarmed about the former. Like it or not, there is a need to be alarmed about the latter, at least to the point of taking prudent measures to check it out as they did.
And it's not like we haven't seen an innocent marketing ploy turned into a security concern before, though I think this one is way more stupid. At some point, these idiotic marketing companies have to figure out that at some point, someone needs to ask the question, "Is this something that could reasonably cause security problems for people who don't look at the world as one huge billboard?"
Here's your problem. A bomb does not "look like a bomb". People think a bomb is a bundle of sticks of dynamite with a bright red digital timer, preferably bleeping. But bombs don't look like that.
qntm.org
I also live in Boston, and while I wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing, whoever called in the complaint is an idiot. The bomb squad, even more so. The media aren't exactly blameless, either; this wasn't exactly a difficult story to crack.
You can't make society bomb-proof, and you'll sacrifice too much in the process of trying. Hopefully we'll learn that someday.
That's just silly. If you are going to hide a bomb, you aren't going to intentionally light it up to draw attention. That sounds like some James Bond plot devive, not real life.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I guess it really boils down to how funny people think terrorism is.
;-)
Uhhh...
They placed cute flashing animated signs in various locations around three cities. According to some accounts, they did this two weeks ago, and Boston just now got around to noticing enough to throw a hissy-fit.
And you call this "terrorism"? The only "terrorists" here sit on the city council and behind news anchor desks at the local media. The advertising firm at worst failed to get the proper permits. Whoop-de-do. Fine them $50 and let's all get on with our lives.
I don't really find it funny that a large chunk of taxpayer's money is being spent investigating what is effectively a burning paper bag full of doo doo.
Well, we agree on that much. And I sincerely hope the people of Boston throw the clueless fearmongers in city hall out on the streets as a result.
Also Aqua Teen Hunger Force sucks. there. i said it. god.
Again, we agree completely. But I'll defend their right to free speech to my death.
Who's going to see a tiny little add posted on a bridge's support column? I think they did this so the bomb squad would come, and they'd get all this free press.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The point about zoning -- fine them the normal fine for a violation. But the cost of overreacting is NOT part of the usual fine and those responsible for that cost should bear it (hint: it's the city and the cops, not the advertiser).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
>We don't even need terrorists anymore. All it takes to shut down a city is cowering, whimpering, losers afraid of their own shadow.
"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices" -- Edward R. Murrow
That's the way they justify all their bullshit.
"Behavior consistent with terrorist actions."
"Associations with well-known terrorists."
etc
When those vague phrases are the best they can do it means they don't have a shred of meaningful evidence but they want to scare people into thinking they do, so their authority won't be questioned.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Real IEDs do not have flashing lights or a ticking clock on them, unlike the movies would have you believe.
How anyone could confuse these things for anything dangerous makes me wonder how incredibly stupid the people in charge of our security really are.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Unfortunately, a lot of people in power want people to think that everyone is out to get them. It is a lot easier to tighten the screws on a populace that is afraid of some ill-defined enemy because they'll give up rights so you can "protect" them. That's why all of these so-called hoaxes get announced.
For a lot of the people in power, the reason they keep parroting the whole "terrorist" possibility (much like the communist scare of years gone by) is so that they can have even more power. They think that if they can keep the populace frightened enough, they will be able to justify keeping themselves in office indefinately and being able to act with impunity.
In addition, it's a great way to distract people from how badly things are going in the economic and civil rights arenas.
It's like the old saying says - power corrupts, and these people have way too much power and far too few scruples.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
...the Scooter Libby trial, where "copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case". http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107Z.shtml
If there's one thing you can rely on, it's bad news for the Adminstration being accompanied by a hyped-up terror scare that turns out to be nothing.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
I'm from Boston. I stood on the subway for a over an hour (normal ride time: 30 minutes or so) because of these dipshit authorities who completely over reacted.
Fixed that for you.
Just keep feeding that fear. It gets hungrier every minute doesn't it?
The less we know, the more people's imaginations go wild, like apparently yours did.
If you're comparing a frickin plane crashing into the WTC to someone finding a lite-brite connected to a battery, I guess I can't help you. The media now goes on full-alert anytime there's ANYTHING that's not immediately explainable as not-terrorism. Are you really trying to tell me you're still willing to keep believing them at this point because "it might just be real"? Exactly how does getting all paranoid and frightened help anyone?
AccountKiller
If they disguise their bombs by making them look like a homeless person, nobody will ever notice them.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
and when you want the Geek out of the picture, you show him something shiney...that ticks.
all that the driver sees on the road or under the bridge is something that is almost but not quite right: movement, a flashing light, that has no good reason for being there.
No, the authorities shut down everything, in a massive overreaction to what was obviously an art project or a harmless prank.
My first thought on seeing a big flashing LED display attached to a bridge would be "Ah, MIT students playing again." I'm seriously surprised the Boston police didn't consider that the explanation. Are they unaware of all the previous MIT pranks?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
> I'm from Boston. I stood on the subway for a over an hour (normal ride time: 30 minutes or so) because of these dipshit "indie" artists that did this for Turner.
:]
Dude, grow a pair instead of getting pissy because you got stuck on the subway for a few minutes.
Some dumbass got freaked out by a glorified Lite Brite. I hate to break this to you, but circuit boards don't explode, nor do LEDs, nor do Duracell D cell batteries, nor do wires. If your city gets this freaked over nothing, any sensible terrorist would just plant a bunch of hoaxes and laugh while you all piss yourself.
You don't want to help the terrorists win, do you?
These events have caused me to reconsider my opinions on the 'war.' As an Australian it seemed to me that the war against terror was lost once the American government began making irrational decisions to invade other countries and police the world ala 'Team America.' By invading Iraq America (and its allies) became the 'Great Satan' it accused of being in the first place. The goverments' (note the plural genetive) actions in this regard have given terrorists justification in their actions (at least in their minds, if not in reality). There is no question now, we are oppressing them. But this whole Boston thing has demonstrated a new height of paranoia. If terrorism is designed to inspire terror, how can we see this situation as anything other than confirmation that the terrorists have indeed achieved their goal? For those who were in the city and heard rumours and whisperings of suspicious devices being found, I can only imagine how that would make you feel. But still, a finger should be pointed at the media. If the media are spinning alarmist stories to incite fear, then they should be targeted by the Bush administration as furthering the cause of terrorism. Unfortunately, scandal and heightened emotions sell better than the facts. It's not just America struggling with this problem. It's the Western world.
Let's build magnetic LED signs that display American Flags and flash the words:
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
And we'll stick them on bridges and buildings.
Lets see the morons flip out and call THEM bombs.
Then we can ask them, "Why do you hate America?" and "Why don't you support our troops?"
And then their heads go all asplody like.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Hoax device? Meaning, he was intentionally misrepresenting a lighted sign board a ... sign? Perhaps, if they looked like actual bombs, they might have a point.
I'm curious what they could actually charge these people for, considering it's often intention to harm that's considered in these cases.
Vandalism, or posting bills or something else.
Once the smoke's clear, the trial will likely end up making the police and city government look stupid. That is, assuming the judge and jury acts reasonably on people that aren't evil criminals.
I think this is showing we have so many (some stupid) laws on the books, that no matter what you do, or do not do, if someone wants you arrested and charged, you can and will be.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The terrorist's handbook is probably being re-written as you read this. Remember, their goal isn't actually to kill people so much as it is to create the panic that you might be killed. The ensuing panic causes far more economic damage than the loss of lives does. And incompetent government officials like those in Boston just play right into it. Now the terrorists know an all new way to create panic, thanks to the Boston Police.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
NO ... you stood on the subway for over an hour because your city is run by a bunch of incompetent jackasses that only know how to overreact and create a panic over a bunch of blinking lights that had been there for days with no problems. You stood on the subway for over an hour because someone saw that one of these signs was flipping the bird and them and got pissed off and called in (on a payphone) to the city and claimed it was a bomb (this act being the hoax act).
You'll probably have a lot more of this in Boston in the future, too, if you don't admit that it is the fault of the city and do what it takes to get some major turnover to get some competent people running the place. Remember, it didn't cause a panic in any of the several other cities they showed up in. The rest of the country is laughing at Boston and all those headless chickens in police uniforms running around. The feeling you should have right now is one of embarassment and shame (if you're supporting those city people that did this).
No it didn't. The devices were there for days. And they were in other cities, too. It was the stupid incompetent police/city officials that shut things down. The rest of us are laughing at Boston.
He should be there for trespassing and vandalism. That's the first crime that was done. The next crime was days later, and was done by some yet-unnamed incompetent city official who, unlike his counterparts in other cities, doesn't have a clue. The police really arrested this guy to try to cover up their own incompetence.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
When we heard about this on the news, my husband and i couldn't stop laughing. This is an expense that the cops and city gov't should just swallow. The fact that stunt consumed so much air time and police time is the fault of the people who should have dug deeper. They have already humiliated themselves enough... suck it up, boys! In response to "feeling safer" that Boston Police are on it is ridiculous. You should feel even more nervous that they are spending time and your money by chasing down a cartoon character. There go your tax dollars at work!
Really? My first thought was that this was genius because for the cheap cheap price of assembling these and hiring someone to set them up they've gained untold millions of dollars worth of free press. And the best part is that with their target audience (18-34 males), they've come off in an incredibly good light. You see, the vast majority of their audience have read all these stories and said "haha, police are dumb, this is just an ad for a cartoon on Adult Swim, hey I might check that out."
Well played Cartoon Network.
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