This bizarre garbage can hack is somewhat brilliant. I found it on zoomdoggle.com, which shows a couple different pictures of it. Obviously this was done by the staff that owns the place, but I think all fast food trash cans should receive this modification.
It seems like the blogs and the mainstream news just won’t shut up about the recent roadsign hacking that happened in Texas this week, where someone hacked at least 4 signs claiming ZOMBIES AHEAD. We first heard about it when our close personal friends at i-hacked.com posted a tutorial on hacking, and it’s kind of blown up from there, being on Fox News, other local news sites and countless blog sites.
Of course, signhacker.com’s own Spessa has been hackingsigns for months now, and vows revenge on the news organizations that didn’t give her all this media exposure for her hard work as soon as she comes out of her alcohol-induced depression and rage.
Tim from Australia recently emailed me a pretty funny sign hack he pulled off at a Formula 1 race track. He says, “When a Formula 1 race ends, the track is opened to the public basically as soon as the last car leaves the track. In 2003 at the F1 GP Race in Melbourne, Australia, we walked around the track, and figured out that the signs on the back straight are just stickers, and if you’re a bit careful about it, you can peel off the stickers and move them, editing the words.
So after the 2004 race ended, we went over to the back straight again, to edit the silly warning messages that the Australian Government makes cigarette companies put on tobacco products and advertising. This time I took a camera.
Here are a few of the pictures that Tim sent us…
Tim also writes, “We spent probably 30 minutes doing this, and I think twice some unimpressed police officers resembling Officer Barbrady from South Park came past and asked us to stop what we were doing and move along, but once they were gone we just went back to it. Everyone else that saw what we were doing was amused though, including some track officials.
There are quite a few more pictures from Tim’s collection and they can all be viewed by visiting IML337.com/gp2004. You can also look at more of Tim’s pictures, read his blog and pay your respects by visiting http://iml337.com/
The roadsigns in Oregon are a different breed — clearly made in the 80’s with a little handheld box to do the editing. We changed this one on the way to rbcp’s house for his birthday bash. There are a lot of these on Interstate 5 in Oregon. I encourage all Oregonians to get out and make their own messages. I couldn’t fit “Birthday” obviously, so I reverted to the infantile pronounciation.
Tonight, after a boring evening of getting a meal and checking the mail, Mr. Spessa and I were sitting in the car wondering how to amuse ourselves. One of us decided we should go check a local construction site to see if there were any signs to “modify.” It probably took us 15 minutes to get there, and 10 more minutes to drive through this construction zone. All their signs were permanent and we were incredibly disappointed.
Then we found a scrolling church sign by Galaxy. If anyone has any information on these kinds of signs, please let me know. We broke open a power panel only to find circuit breakers. There seemed to be another panel that we couldn’t get open, where I assume there was a way to edit the sign.
So, that didn’t work either. Our night sucked. We were losers at the game of hacking signs. But Mr. Spessa is a very dedicated man, and decided to go to our states Department of Transportation website on his blackberry. OMG it was awesome. It had little flags all over the state warning drivers about where the construction was! YAY! We drove another 15 minutes to where they told us there was something going on, and nothing. As a last ditch effort, we drove down the freeway to something about 15 more miles away.
I wish you could have heard us when we saw the sign flashing down the highway. It was like our favorite football team won the Super Bowl (we don’t like football, btw.) OMG OMG GASP GASP YAY.
There were two signs on opposites sides of the freeway, about 4 miles away from each other. The thing that sucked was that you had to drive 8 miles to an exit, turn around, and come back to get to the next sign. But, like I mentioned, we’re totally dedicated. So we did it.
The first sign we changed was easy enough. It’s the only picture I have. Then we drove up the freeway, and there was a cop who had pulled someone over. I was almost too paranoid to change the second sign. But Mr. Spessa convinced me he was at least 4 minutes behind us, and it only takes 2 minutes to change the sign. So I changed the second sign to say “WE KNOW YOU’RE DRIVING DRUNK.” I couldn’t get a picture of it from where we were, so we got back on the freeway, turned around, made sure our first sign was there, and drove back to the second sign.
In those brief moments of driving, the cop had already turned the second sign off, so I don’t have a picture of that one for you. When we got back to the first sign, he was pulled over next to it trying to figure out how to turn it off. I wonder how successful he was, because here it is:
I think I was feeling bad because I hadn’t given you, my loyal 2 and a half readers, anything this week. So I hope you appreciate our determination.
I finally hacked a sign! It’s about time. As we were driving down the highway, my son and I found these portable road signs. The control panels were unlocked. The password to gain entry to the system was on a post-it note inside the console.
It’s Scary Out There!
Discerning drivers can decide if the message is ABOUT or DIRECTED TO vampires. Personally, I like to think it’s all about the department of transportation warning an army of vampires about a disturbingly vampire-unfriendly part of the highway.
At least now I know the default password for these machines. The first one we found died (I assume it ran out of solar power?) before we grew the balls to go change it. Thankfully, the second one was still running, and although I had a lot of trouble typing everything in total darkness, the home keys on the standard PC keyboard saved our evening!
It’s pretty funny to think that tomorrow, no one will know about the boring detour that these signs were warning drivers about prior to my shenanigans.
Here’s the inside of the box where you enter the password and wordings.
In the interest of bi-partisanship, I couldn’t let myself ONLY promote that cute little Obama. Here’s my work on giving people good reasons to vote for McCain.
Will I really be influential in changing the minds of the voters in my all white, highly racist community? I’ll never know, but I’ll know that I tried!
People WERE worried
I Don't Think He's Tall Enough
I Sure Told THEM
I Heard A Rumor...
It’s a great time for black presidental candidates!
I paid one dollar for the privilige of promoting signhacker.com at the local mini-mart. I’m sure most of our future readers will come from this impeccable ingenuity of mine!