Quick! Paint somewhere else.
Paint everywhere else. Turn everything that’s not guarded in to rainbows of defiance.
You never know when one of those cheeky crossings will turn gay on you.
I looked at the sky the other day after a bit of rain. Boom. Gay. Just like that. It could happen to any of us.
What an incredibly efficient use of taxpayer-funded police forces! Should report it to DOGE, they definitely need to cut funding for that
Yep.
We cant give medicine/healthcare that those that need it, cause its to expensive.
We cant give food to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
We can’t provide shelter to those that need it, cause its too expensive.
but somehow, magically, when it comes to the police state and fascism… Theres always an endless waterfall of money.
I guess when one is in a gold-plated conference room with oligarch friends and you collectively have a couple trillion dollars in assets to “protect,” peeling away a few billion to pay some of the poors to shoot the other poors before they take your shit (or your head) seems like a pretty reasonable business expense.
When you look at them as the protectors of capital rather than the protectors of the people, it makes a lot more sense.
i mean, you dont even have to look at it that way.
cause it literally is that.
Police, since the begining, have existed to protect the property of the rich. Not the rights of the poor.
They’ve literally gone to the supreme court to fight against being held accountable to their own “protect and serve” bullshit.
Florida has it own DOGE…
Russia: Rainbow Flag Illegal
USA: Rainbow Flag Illegal
So what’s the difference anymore.
Russia has a capable (if thoroughly evil) leader?
It’s the same leader
Mmm, I’d say Ukraine makes that not the case. The capable part, not the evil part.
Maybe. I think Putin’s main concern with Ukraine was preventing them from selling natural gas from the Donbas region to Western Europe and undercutting his main source of revenue, and he’s achieved that even if he didn’t successfully overrun the whole country.
The US also has a very capable leader. As you can see with President Putin’s implementation of his controversial policies in the US.
Oh you mentioned some orange old man hanging out in DC? Oh that’s just the court jester.
Cause you know, that will stop all the horrible crime the GOP is talking about… You know how dangerous crosswalks are!
Hold the cops down and paint them then
Just wait em out? You’re in a seige now, and hopefully the seiging army goes home. Then, you go out and make it a rainbow again.
Go and stand there with buckets of paint and a roller and wait them out. Even better if it’s one can labeled “rainbow” paint.
Instead of defund the police, it’s now “run out the police budget”
Is it a crime to buy a vinyl decal for a car that says “rainbow painting” and drive around a city, occasionally stopping near crosswalks to check your phone? I don’t think so.
you’ll never run out the police budget.
If you managed to even get close to it, government would step in and take more money from starving children and the ill, to keep their fascist oppressors on the streets.
We all literally just saw this happen.
ICE budget is multiplied by 10 because they “ran out of budget”
Paint police instead? /silly
You only need one color of paint (yellow, in case anyone wonders).
I know what you meant, but arguably this does make them the Paint Police.
I’ve just been to eat Germany and saw in a museum the Incredible pettiness of the surveillance state.
They collected smell samples of supposed activists, and you could be labeled an activist for writing something sarcastic on a poster or newspaper. Also if you were labeled as such they could 'unofficially ’ ruin your life (as in thwart your ambitions and goals.
So much money and effort was spent on policing the hearts and minds of the populace. And the frail religious conservatives who run America would probably love the idea.
I’ve just been to eat Germany
I recommend chewable Tums for that.
Hah!
I recently went to Germany too and there’s such an uncomfortably large number of cops everywhere. Do you happen to have more info on what you talked about? Id love to read up on it and potentially want friends who live there.
I was in Leipzig, the museum I was mainly taking about was museum der runde ecke but this museum Was also very informative
Well then lets hope the US Gov. also crumbles from the sheer amount of resources it takes to be that kind of a dick to its population. I mean they are on a fast track, spending billions they do not really have because of tax cuts to the rich.
Well then lets hope the US Gov. also crumbles from the sheer amount of resources it takes to be that kind of a dick to its population.
Why do you think republicans are so keen on AI? The stasi had to rely on slow humans who might give a shit about accuracy. Republicans don’t care if they arrest the wrong person. Particularly since they know that AI trained on a racist system is going to behave like a racist system.
Seems like a good use of their time. Police jobs are basically welfare for the mediocre low iq dipshits from high school.
Police jobs are basically welfare for the mediocre low iq dipshits from high school.
Soon to be replaced with lower-paying ICE jobs for the schmos who don’t even qualify to be cops. I personally wouldn’t even be surprised if it turns out ICE is hiring undocumented immigrants, for the same reason everybody else does.
Has anyone heard of Toynbee Tiles? These are interesting by themselves but the relevant point is how they are made.
You make a mosaic out of vinyl flooring chunks on a backing of paper and roofing tar as mastic.
You place them paper side up on asphalt pavement in hot weather. As cars drive over them, the paper and tar wear off revealing the vinyl mosaic.
Just a thought that a group of people could quickly make a rainbow crosswalk that can’t be painted over.
I’ve never seen one, but have read about them.
Really interesting from a guerilla art perspective. Also, the durability is innovative.
Yeah, it’s intriguing.
I have given it some thought and they could be made even more durable by using vinyl flooring adhesive to adhere the mosaic pieces to a backing of wire mesh.
The usual method uses only asphalt crack filler, which is still necessary, but it also requires one to assemble the design backwards. Adhering to metal mesh first would allow one to assemble it front the viewer’s perspective and reduce shifting of the pieces over time for more durability.
Not to mention that a basic CNC machine could cut the vinyl very precisely and in elaborate shapes. One could really take the quality and durability of the designs up a notch or two using the old noggin and modern Maker tools.
So now I am going to have to think of a place locally to do this….
Small squares as pixels would be time consuming, but would allow high detail even without a CNC.
Drag knife on a cricut wouldn’t be strong enough for thick tile.Mill with a O-flute single flute plastic routing bit would be the way to go. 1/8" diameter, carbide, as fast the spindle will turn. Flute length as short as the tile thickness will allow. You’d want a few spares, you’ll probably break a couple getting it tweaked. Start at .030 chip load, full width and depth, probably don’t need a finish pass as the edge roughness will increase adhesion and won’t be visible. Don’t use coolant, don’t breathe the dust, wear a P99 or P100 respirator, shop vac with HEPA for cleanup. Some tile may have abrasive fiber in it and will shorten tool life.
For fixturing, I think I’d use strap clamps and bars around edges. Use tabs between pieces almost like a stencil, lot of CAM software has a setting for auto tabs on profile cuts, cut from center to edges. Vacuum tables can be real temperamental, slow way down and still tab if trying to hold with vacuum. Double sided carpet tape can do it but has to be removed with acetone and IDK if that would effect the tile.
Just spitballing, I’d be afraid metal mesh might cause de-adherence over time, especially if it corordes. I really like the mesh idea. Loose cotton fabric like cheese cloth or maybe a little tougher would absorb the tar and might make it even stronger, just have to pour at a high enough temp. Fiberglass sheet might also work.
Yes, regarding the mesh. I was wondering if a flexible mesh might be better. Toynbee tiles seem to become illegible mostly because individual pieces shift over time and make them look more of a jumble, this becomes more pronounced as the individual pieces become smaller. I was thinking more fiberglass, too, but even burlap would be fine probably.
A good flexible adhesive on the back of the pieces then pressed firmly into the fiberglass/cloth and weighted until set up.
One thing to consider is that the asphalt crack filler needs to be pressed into and around the pieces, serving a role similar to grout in tile. So the order of operations would be important. That’s more of an assembly issue, I guess.
There are numerous open source tile mosaic softwares out there that will generate the tiling, including the needed gaps for ‘grout’.
And Armstrong Flooring makes VCT in a huge array of colors. A source for vinyl tile of specific colors
Super fun, I am going to talk with my local folks and find a good location for a small test of these ideas. Such fun, thanks for engaging
The article title is framing things way too passively considering the reality which is :
“Florida Republicans order the erasure of mass shooting memorial for 49 murder victims targeted by a bigot wanting to kill members of the LGBT community”
…a mass shooting that took place LESS THAN A DECADE AGO
These comments are wild smh
Imagine being so insecure that you have to stop people from having a harmless shrine to a bunch of people killed in a mass murder.
Anyways, there’s a lot of crosswalks and there’s no way they can even long term focus on this crosswalk. Wait for them to leave, do it again.
You bring up a good point here. There are a lot of crosswalks. So what happens if people just start doing this at random crosswalks around the city?
Aha, a crime wave! Deploy the National Guard!
They just obama strike the place. The gays have taking over and can’t be contained.
Obama?
This would be funny if it was not true
Causing damage for political purposes - terrorists.
Death penalty.
Once they cover the city in guard to prevent gay crosswalks we just move to the next city
Do the Andy Dufresne method of shaking colored paint/chalk out of your pant legs while you cross the street. They’ll never see it coming.
I was thinking, what else can we rainbow up while they’re all looking at crosswalks?
Postal boxes? Transformer boxes? Manhole covers? Park walking paths? Detention center fences? The houses of local homophobic politicians? Bike racks? Telephone poles?
Defacing postal boxes is destruction of federal property. Up to 3 years and $200k. Also, postal inspectors will absolutely dick you down and make local Florida cops look even way more dumberer.
Postal inspectors are kind of like game wardens. They are cops, but, they mostly get a pass and they do a lot of good.
Okay, so not those then!
While I’m 110% supportive of LGBT+, I don’t think people painting crosswalks anyway they like is OK. They are safety features, recognizable from a distance, and it’s not far fetched to think that casualties may occur. Painting official building’s walls could be an alternative, for example. Both are technically vandalism, but these walls would not be a hazard.
Vertical faces of entrance steps? that’d be cool!
You do actually know why they’re doing this, right? Because there was already a rainbow crosswalk to commemorate the Pulse Nightclub victims. It’s so weird that there were no casualties in that one! The fascists painted it over because they’re homophobic knuckleheads, and so now protesters are painting it and others back. You know, it takes zero effort not to be a pedantic but also ignorant ass just for the sake of it.
I could go on a flame war over “it takes zero effort not to be a pedantic but also ignorant ass just for the sake of it.” as an answer to a civilized, reasoned comment, but I don’t want this place to be Reddit. Insults really detract from your argument.
Nice try. Now back to the topic at hand…
Please do tell us how rainbow is less visible than white lines that blend into all the other white lines.
Please do cite any stats you have that show increased accident rates during pride month or in cities with rainbow cross walks.
Have you never actually seen a crosswalk before? Because I’m having trouble figuring out which part of these rainbow flag colored crosswalks makes them look any less like a crosswalk or makes them less visible or recognizable in any way. Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk. Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I’ve heard this week.
I dont understand why you all are getting on this persons case. They brought up a pretty reasonable point, traffic markings are better when they are standardized. There are avenues where having a memorial doesnt detract from that standardization. They gave reasonable alternatives in addition. They arent sitting here praising the motivations behind the enforcement yet you all are acting like thats the commenters motivation.
Literally the only other pavement marking that comes anywhere near looking like or being placed in the same way on a road is a stop bar. And guess what, car drivers routinely mistake the plain crosswalks for stop bars, thereby blocking the crosswalk
So because people already have issues with standardization we should allow less of it? This doesnt improve the argument you are trying to make. Stop being reactionary because of the subject matter here and take a step back first.
Making the claim that painting a pedestrian crosswalk in bright colors somehow makes them less visible or recognizable has got to be the dumbest argument I’ve heard this week.
Its honestly pretty sane in this context when you step back instead of getting reactionary. Is the paint being used reflective? Is it causing the crosswalks to be less reflective in low light conditions? Its not like all the painting being done is standardized. Not all places in the world have cross walks painted out and in night conditions where we constantly have headlights blinding people and some that arent bright enough to compensate for those differences those painted crosswalks could have an impact on safety if the decrease visibility of them in low light conditions.
In the case of the original crosswalk memorial that got defaced by the fascists I am assuming there was reflective paint used, so if people are using something with the same reflective properties as regular road paint I dont see an issue at all with a colorful crosswalk. But when you have people without that style of paint covering up crosswalks it can become a safety issue in night conditions and you arent going to see stats/studies for this as there is not enough sample data to even make that case. Not every rule or standard needs to be written in blood sometimes we can use common sense before allowing people to get injured enough to make a study and dataset to back a point.
Having a memorial that is off the road one would be more visible and also take away the hiding of motivation when the fascists try to deface it by acting like its just a safety thing. Which they recommended, paint walls, the faces of steps etc.
Like I get this is a sore topic due to the state of shit right now but we need to stop fighting with those who are trying to be helpful or offer other valid viewpoints. If we want to fight back against the rising fascism around the world we need more unity which comes from being open to dialog not just being reactionary. All being reactionary is going to do is push people away and make us more fractured and disorganized.
Don’t bother, this place is becoming Reddit 2.0
You could have stopped at dumbest. I believe I’m making a civil and reasonable comment.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors. For example, my mother, in her 80’s is a surprisingly safe driver for her age, but her visual acuity is just not the same as before, and at night she may have trouble with a rainbow.
The crosswalk being painted to commemorate the Pulse tragedy is common knowledge and is described in the article body.
A rainbow is nonstandard but so was the murder that occurred in this community, which is why it’s remembered this way. Anyone driving past this building, including your aged mother, should know about it for the reasons described above. And if she regularly struggles to see anything other than black and white, it may be time for her to retake her drivers’ test.
Thanks for being civil.
What is non-standard here? Homophobia has been a constant through much of history. It’s beyond disgusting and horrifying, but it’s been there for ages.
If you read my post you may notice that I’m not against memorializing, or pro-police or town hall, and that I favor these actions, but where they are not a safety concern. Oh, and this isn’t about my mother, but about the millions of drivers who may not have 100% vision, which is most of us.
Have you ever asked yourself why the vast majority of road markings worldwide are white on black, or yellow on black? Fancy? Fashion? whim?
Also, I 'd like to invite you to google “high contrast safety”
the person speaking doesn’t get to decide how their tone is perceived. repeating “civil and reasonable” in the face of people who say you’re acting oppositely in some way is unlikely to change their opinion. even if it did, there is no way to phrase “painting a rainbow onto a sidewalk makes it less visible” in such a way that your tone makes up for the fact that the claim is absurd on its face. doubly so when you’re not providing traffic data to support the claim. also, ‘reasonable’ suggests you subscribe to some reasoning, but the ‘reasoning’ provided is “it’s not far fetched to think that casualties may occur.” okay well, color me skeptical. why do you believe that. i’ll give you civil for whatever you think that’s worth on its own though.
Have you read the comment? My reply does not allude to content, but to the insult. Part of my job is ergonomics. I’m stating a fact. That there has not been a casualty yet, does not invalidate my point.
you aren’t stating a fact, you’re speculating that colorful chalk on the crosswalk could contribute to an accident in some unspecified way. I’ve asked for what data could support your opinion (by way of observing its absence) and- you’ll correct me if i’m wrong here- you’ve just agreed that in almost the decade since the pulse shooting there have been exactly no incidents that can be traced back to this potentially dangerous political statement that you 100% agree with. do i have this about right?
The article says “Paint”, a whole different ball game from chalk. Visibility aside, I’m a motorcyclist, and I can assure you that slick paint on the road is deadly. Pointing out that there hasn’t been an accident yet, and declaring it safe is a textbook example of logical fallacy.
Want data? Ask google for “high contrast safety”. Here is a result, in case your google-fu is not up to date
it’s hard to be up-to-date with google fu these days. I tried looking for traffic data on that intersection (eg pulse nightclub traffic safety before:2025-01-01) only to find it either doesn’t exist as such or is so obscure to me that it might as well not exist. visibility on the road is a very different thing than slickness i hadn’t considered, granted full stop.
I still need to be convinced that whatever paint it is they’re using is actually causing the road to be slick before i retract or make any edits to previous statements, but that’s definitely a more serious point in my opinion and thanks for specifying. like i could see latex as an issue but i wouldn’t agree spray paint is an issue. and then the problem would be how should we both allow these people to memorialize a tragedy in such a way as to safely allow for the passage of traffic, not unilateral denial of a precedented memorial on grounds that can not at this time be shown to be supported by evidence, whatever you may say about the fallacious nature of my skepticism.
and not for nothing, but i just actually checked and, only the headline could have its ambiguity be interpreted to suggest the memorialists were ‘painting.’ at least according to this article, the floridian state are the ones using paint and the pulse memorialists are using chalk, and despite the OP’s headline referring to “repeainting,” the images of the crosswalk show it ‘painted’ with chalk within that article, so actually, are you sure you didn’t just read the headline and come to a ‘reasonable’ conclusion and ‘civilly’ express your ‘100%’ support for the cause while actually thoughtlessly supporting the erasure of a tragedy’s memorial for some reason?
then, from your source:
Visibility: High contrast improves the visibility of safety signs, making them stand out against their background. This is crucial in environments where lighting may be poor or where the sign needs to be seen from a distance.
are you honestly suggesting a colorful pattern instead of black would tend to reduce visibility? this is the part i was saying is absurd on its face earlier. and i’m sure you’ll forgive me as i return the accusation of “did you even read this?” i was not going to slap you with this earlier because it’s such an obvious retort as to be insulting, but, how are you not constantly struggling with visibility on the road with all the different colors of car?
I’d like to hear what florida state law or traffic data or the people actually using the crosswalk have to say about the matter, not this unrecognizable messageworks public interest group on the first page of a “traffic visibility” google-fu session, or some ergonomical motorcyclist who i frankly suspect will never come across this intersection in their life.
I assume the original memorial crosswalk had reflective paint used on its markings, if people are just using chalk or regular paint now it would end up reducing the reflective properties of crosswalks which would effect low light visibility. Im not sure if people have been doing this for other crosswalks but if that is the case the person you are responding to does actually have a bit of a point, we are better off just painting walls, steps, or making signs as they originally suggested, considering the state isnt just going to accept and standardize rainbow crosswalks under this administration. That also removes the hiding of motivation for the police from this being a safety act to being purely bigoted which is important. Don’t allow the fascists some reasonable cover to do what they do, force them to do it with their motivation on clear display.
the crosswalk was painted at some point with highly the reflective white paint commonly found on american roads in the expected pattern for a crosswalk, but the paint has not been maintained for some time. it is dirty and not a very good reflector, even in places where chalk and standard-issue road grime has been washed off. I base this analysis exclusively on the image of the chalkwalk in the OP article. when you go back to review that image in the article, please observe the flooding overhead light directly illuminating the entire crosswalk. I would be willing to grant that, in the event of a power outage or service interruption on that light, the chalk would probably not be significantly more effective at catching a car’s headlights than plain asphalt- or cracked, broken, flaking, dirty, generally neglected ‘reflective’ paint.
and yes you’re absolutely right. there are plenty other crosswalks and walls for that matter in florida. They want that particular crosswalk to not be flamboyantly homosexual? well. there’s more of us than there are of them, put it that way.
edit: and in looking up the government’s line on this: ron desantis is plainly displeased with the fact that public property is being used for political speech. stop carrying the fascist’s water for them. this argument is not made in good faith by the people actually carrying out the erasure.
https://x.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1958583393714667572
We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.
The possibility that a random person would go to the lengths of adding micro-beads, or go to the trouble of procuring reflective pavement paint of the colors used seems a bit far-fetched to me. Could be, but unlikely in my view.
I have probably not explained myself well enough, or maybe you have not read, or understood correctly.
this potentially dangerous political statement that you 100% agree with
Here you clearly have a problem with reading comprehension.
Stating that something is safe because another event hasn’t happened yet, is a logical fallacy. It’s like stating that smoking isn’t harmful because your grampa smoked until his 80’s and didn’t die of cancer.
It sounds like you made a point without thinking a whole lot about it, and now you’re just doubling down instead of just saying “yeah you’re right, my bad.”
I made a thoroughly well though out point, and I’m replying with what I consider reasonable effort and arguments, which are countered with insults. Please re-read the thread.
Also, a black and white contrast is objectively more un-equivocal than a flurry of colors.
Objectively?
Based on what?
Based on you thinking that a specific series of white lines on a black background amongst a large series of white lines on a blackground is more distinct than a completely different rainbow pattern?
You spend much time working in UX, psychology, or vision analysis?
You come across as a “well ackchyually” dipshit. You might think you are making a point, but think this one through, is it a good one in this context? Is it even a good one at all?
I think you may have anger issues. If that is the case (I’m not trained to diagnose) you may want to explore professional attention.
I rest my case.
It’s funny how they’re only replying to comments with a somewhat “aggressive” tone, to complain about the tone while ignoring the actual point.
I’m replying to many posts. The aggressive ones pretty much disqualify themselves. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” is very applicable here. People don’t seem to read.
Which is? Please people, read.
Why is your mom, at 80, driving around the part of town where there are nightclubs, alone, at night…?
I dunno? Freedom?
around the part of town where there are nightclubs, alone, at night
Aren’t we a wee opinionated and with fascist tendencies? Surprising how you defend some groups freedom but deny others.
If you bothered to look at the way these are painted you would know this isn’t a problem.
As someone who deals with ergonomics as part of his job I KNOW there is a problem.
As someone who deals with UX and the psychology of recognizing and distinguishing things, I can tell you that you know jack shit about the situation here, and working in a field close to ergonomics is evidently not the expertise you think it is.
I did not say I work in a field close to ergonomics, I said that my work INVOLVES ergonomics. Also, pretending that someone who “deals with UX” has any serious knowledge of ergonomics, is like a chiropractic saying they are an actual medical doctor, or that a software “engineer” is anything near a real engineer.
The problem we’re talking about is a UX one. The ability to quickly distinguish a visual sign / interface.
And I’m both an actual electrical engineer and a software engineer, I understand the distinctions between the two very well.
But do please cite your ergonomic data showing that rainbow crosswalks are hard to see, or you can admit that you’re just baselessly pearl clutching.
Yet you have not been able to back up that supposed knowledge with ANYTHING
One of the first results from googling “high contrast safety”.
There are a bajillion more, and many actual research publications. You really could benefit from reading.
It looks like reading AND comprehending isn’t really your thing, bless your heart.
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I’m sure they are very concerned about savety and that’s why they need to repaint them
Safety
Have I said that? I do despise the the motivation, but that does not detract from the cold facts.
the cold facts
Which are…? Surely you’re able to innumerate them with actual real life evidence
I think you may have wanted to write “enumerate”.
And no, I’m not going to give you a private lecture on high contrast visibility. Do your research. You may start with why ALL operating systems go to the trouble of having a high contrast mode. (Hint: it’s not for looks)
