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December 30, 2005 12:03 AM
Broken: M27 westbound sign in Hampshire, UK
Gregg Bond submits a picture of a sign taken between Fareham and Southampton in Hampshire, UK:
I was driving along the road the other evening and spotted this overhead road sign.
Suffice to say, its properly broken :)
I've also seen some flashing a three-page test pattern:
1:
ABCDEFGH
IJKLMNOP
QRSTUVWX
2:
░ ░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░
3:
░ ░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░
░ ░ ░ ░
The dual-repeating pattern of checkerboards is kind of cool to look at, though. My posting it here doesn't really convey it, unfortunately, because the blog software (broken? Nah, probably not) won't allow me to type lines with leading spaces.
_@_v - not broken. that's prolly a sign for one of those scottish or welsh towns with the insanely long and unpronouncable names. i think i've passed thru gritittiningng-in-progogress on my way to the portmerion resort...
Perhaps it isn't broken, just spelled wrong.
Gritting could mean that they are salting the roads, so the sign should read
"Gritting In Progress"
I'm not sure if it's broken.
JD - points for being Champion of the Obvious. But how is "spelled wrong" "not broken" ?
I much prefer she-snailie's explanation, LMAO.
I think they're having a joke.
Yesterday was the coldest day in England for 19 years. If you say "gritting in progress" while your teeth are chattering, that's what you get.
Gritittingng is near Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (a real town name in Wales)
The Washington State Ferries (way broken, BTW) had electronic signs on the footbridge to the boat that said "selftest passed" for about 2 years. eventualy they said "selftest failed" someone put a note next to them that said "whoopie"
Pat: "JD - points for being Champion of the Obvious. But how is "spelled wrong" "not broken" ?"
A "broken" device is a device that is *designed* poorly, not a device that is operated improperly.
Posting a "This is Broken" about someone who put a peanut butter sandwich in their Sony DVD player slot will not encourage Sony to "smarten up and build better-designed devices".
its either a glitch (duh broken, that sign is important) or a human error/joke. but when that human is responsible for keeping drivers safe and informed... he is making the DOT look unprofessional, and making it more difficult for someone driving to read. the longer the sign is up, the more broken the organization in charge of signs is for allowing it to remain, and allowing it to happen in the 1st place.
Searching for 'Gritittingng' on Google shows only one result (this post). Isn't there a term for that? (When you find a search term that returns only one result in Google?)
Found the answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlewhack
GRITITTINGNG IN PROGOGRESS is a Googlewhack!
A googlewhack must be two *words*. First you have listed 3 "words" and even the two outside "words" are not found on answers.com, the dictionary link used by Google.
Nice try, but not a Googlewhack.
DaveC, there is no complaint (on my part, anyway) about the device being broken.
The "customers" of road signs are the motorists who read them. A misspelled word on a sign is broken from a customer experience point of view. It doesn't matter whether it was the fault of someone operating an input device, or an actual broken device (which can happen, but in this case there isn't enough evidence to see where the misspelling came from).
Granted, the result can be pretty harmless, as in this case, but it can also be serious enough to make a driver react with a "WTF was that?" and miss a turn, or worse.
I think Paul's explanation makes sense, and that makes it not broken to a person who gets the joke. Despite not being broken, I think the joke was not a bad idea, and all you people who say that that is dangerous and unprofessional are the reason that our corporations and jobs are so damned dull. Let the DOT guys have their fun, and if a motorist gets it, simply hope that they don't laugh hard enough to lose control.
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!First yay
Well i do like to see those signs testing like this
1234512345testestest
always funny
Posted by: Riblet15 at December 30, 2005 12:22 AM