Important lesson for social movements:
You don't need to use the brick, but you must have one
Maybe it's a missing product.
The brick cover for smartphones.
🙏
@Troetifant @ancient_catbus What if you just brick your phone?
@peterdrake @Troetifant @ancient_catbus Drivers need to be able to see it's bricked, or they won't notice you.
@Troetifant
Also gives you that sweet 1980s cell phone vibe.
@ancient_catbus, I need an extra weight for exercise, I guess brick will work just fine!
…except that in PL it's more likely to actually trigger aggression from drivers.
@ancient_catbus honestly I’m into it
@ancient_catbus @jef this works for me with my helmet camera on my bike helmet: if the camera is on the helmet, people drive more carefully around me whether the camera is on/charged or not.
@marcprecipice @ancient_catbus Yeah, I am too lazy to deal with a bike camera (charging, operating, downloading, editing) but I've considered mounting someone else's donated old broken bike cam as a deterrent.
@jef @ancient_catbus it’s totally worth it.
@jef @marcprecipice @ancient_catbus We had three clothing stores and didn’t want to spend the money on three sensors so I took a cardboard box cut it to the exact shape of the sensors we had just paid $2000 each for for the other stores, painted it textured it put an LED in it and added a fake cord… Bingo, no shoplifters.
@Pineywoozle @jef @marcprecipice @ancient_catbus
I had my bike stolen from outside the grocery store, from the rack right under a security camera dome.
I went inside, asked at the service counter if they had footage from the camera over the bike rack. "Oh, that camera hasn't worked as long as I've worked here. I don't even know if there is a camera in that dome."
Not perfect I guess...
@dragonfrog @jef @marcprecipice @ancient_catbus No sadly, nothing is. We had security tape on all the windows etc, a full system. The burglars that literally cleaned out 1 of our stores & loaded everything into a semi in 4 hours, did so by breaking through a brick wall. Our stores were 1/3 New from Europe & La - 1/3 Vintage & 1/3 upscale resale. When our customers learned of the break in they just gave us $1,000s of $s worth of jewelry 🥰💕🫶
@Pineywoozle @jef @marcprecipice @ancient_catbus
I'm going to steal that idea.
@GoatRoper @jef @marcprecipice @ancient_catbus LoL I used cream of wheat mixed into the second coat of paint for the perfect nubby texture.
@marcprecipice @ancient_catbus @jef
Ooh imagine camera PLUS brick 🤔
@_L1vY_ don't record yourself doing crime 🤦
@gws Holding a brick is not a crime, but it might be a deterrent. 🤦🏻♀️
@marcprecipice @ancient_catbus @jef
i.e. the drivers could not only see you all along, they saw you well enough to pick out a fairly small detail. And many of them just didn't care about cyclists' safety until they thought they might get caught.
@ancient_catbus This is nonsense. I stand on the edge of 13th st all the time with a brick or a large rock, and drivers don't pay any attention to me.
@ancient_catbus i'm sure this would work. saw a similar phenomenon when a man was crossing a street with a baseball bat in hand, and he was not dressed as an athlete 😂 everyone, cars & pedestrians, gave him a wide berth
@hawt_pepper @ancient_catbus ah yes, an Amazon rules baseball player
I've had the same effect when carrying juggling staff's. :D
I put them in a shoulder-slung martial-arts-weapons bag, and got a lot more space on the tube, and when crossing the road. :D
Though when i was in Scotland, i kept getting into conversations with people who did fly-fishing. :D
@ancient_catbus could probably have a fake brick made of styrofoam
@dgodon @ancient_catbus With a space carved out for a smartphone.
@ancient_catbus Safety crossing flags are bogus, bring on Safety Bricks™️
@ancient_catbus pro tip for cyclists, wear a long blonde wig over your helmet:
https://www.eta.co.uk/2011/04/01/safest-bicycle-helmet-has-built-in-wig/
@ancient_catbus @guenther I need the handlebar flame thrower
@guenther @ancient_catbus Do they make bricks with blonde hair?
@ancient_catbus not too long ago I was at an art show where everybody was encouraged to leave with a brick and frankly this should be standard
@ancient_catbus Speak softly and carry a big stick.
@ancient_catbus Foam bricks for those of us who might be tempted to use it:
@ancient_catbus an armed society is a polite society ...
Tech
Yes, we see that all the time here in 'murican...
@ancient_catbus this is funny and all but it’s also a hop and a skip away from the arguments people make for open carry of firearms.
@ndpi
This works with a "brick" made out of styrofoam. So the comparison with firearms would only be relevant if people were advocating for water guns.
@Moutmout @ancient_catbus it’s functionally irrelevant what the brick is made of if it still appears threatening to the drivers.
That’s the mechanism here: an implied threat that the brick might be thrown through their windshield. Someone carrying a fake-but-plausible gun would be a better analogy.
@ancient_catbus video ID: a person in business casual stands in the rain by the side of the road, holding an umbrella. Cars drive through a puddle and splash the person repeatedly at they drive past, each time the person flinches back and brings down the umbrella, but too late. After a few cars (in separate cuts), we see the same person holding an umbrella in one hand and a brick in the other, with the brick held slightly in front of they're body so it's visible to oncoming traffic. Now, we see cars and buses slowing down as they approach, shifting over to the outside of the near lane, and/or changing lanes entirely, in all cases not driving through the puddle and thus not splashing the person. At the end a fade to black include text suggesting that drivers should slow down with driving in the rain.
P.S.: you can edit this text into the original post as alt-text if you want.
@ancient_catbus people who think this is about pedestrians and drivers have read the parable but have not understood
@ancient_catbus lmao this is fantastic XD
@ancient_catbus
Fantastic idea. So you can cross as a pedestrian while green lights glowin and noone will try to bother you.
:open_access: ☮
@wuffel@social.tchncs.de @ancient_catbus@jorts.horse so instead of yellow flags (as @notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com showed), North American cities should offer bricks at crosswalks 🤔
@lis @Johann150 @wuffel @notjustbikes @ancient_catbus Mutually assured destruction!
@ancient_catbus so, a brick will improve driving skils and increase politeness in drivers.
@ancient_catbus I'm thinking maybe a Javelin case...
@ancient_catbus @heathborders Restoring the balance of power!
@ancient_catbus So apparently a pike (the 4+ meter long polearm) weighs about as much as a standard brick. I have at times thought about crossing the road with a pike pointed at the drivers - just to say "I'm making sure if you hit me, we both die." A brick is a lot more compact though.
@ancient_catbus I'm uncomfortable with this takeaway when extrapolating it to guns
@dotproto people better arm up bc cops are on the side of the fascists, however uncomfortable that makes you
Disappointed at the lack of Reply Guys wading in with the legal implication of using a brick in a situation like that - surely you can't have scared them all off by now?
So on that note I send you #ShoegazeSunday pleasures - 147 Swordfish - short-lived as a band, but banging (sadly I missed the gig in the video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgAj9mzoAY
@ancient_catbus The Fucking Around-Finding Out Theory of Revolutionary Praxis
@ancient_catbus
R-E-S-P-E-C-T!
@ancient_catbus I may start carrying a brick when I go on walks now. I’m being serious, there are some psychotic drivers in my neighborhood.