Is this life now? Nobody can wait a minute to cross the street without something to distract them with? Constant stimulation. I know this isn't real, but this isn't a neat idea. We need a bit of boring time in our lives.
Streetpong [video]
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: Streetpong [video]
#32This looks a little dangerous to me, because it makes the pedestrian take their mind off the road. Just last week, a car accidentally drove up on the side walk part of the crosswalk and would have hit me had I not been paying attention and jumped out of the way. From what I understand this is not an uncommon event either. It's not like the lip of the curve is really any protection against the cars, a car can easily d…
Definitely not dangerous (maybe in the USA), you're just waiting for your light to switch. Better than standing and tapping on your phone, it seems fun, it involves another person across the street that you get to meet, high fives and a lot of smiles. This is how the life should be. Wait.. in America a strange wouldn't give you a high five, that would be just weird, why would someone do that? What if they have cooties?
:D
Re: Streetpong [video]
#33I like this concept - small, usable art installations designed to make inconspicuous things social. But the pessimist in me takes one look at their concept and things "That's going to break so quickly here in Boston." What I would love to see, and which seems realistic from this video, is an installation that shows the people waiting a "loading bar" or countdown or some visual indicator of how long until the crosswal…
> That's going to break so quickly here in Boston.
Depends on what you mean by "break". In Boston, you might just get, epic, hour-long pong battles. Seriously, the pedestrian signal situation in Boston is so haphazard you could hardly make it worse by introducing experiments like this.
Re: Streetpong [video]
#34Off-topic: Does anybody know why you have to wait for a pedestrian crossing light to turn green at all? If it's usually green for car traffic all the time, and only turns green for pedestrians on request, why not change immediately when somebody pushes the button?
Some do. Lights do all sorts of different things, ranging from turning immediately (as long as they did not just turn) to fully ignoring your input and just letting you feel better by pounding the button, and all sorts of things in between.
Re: Streetpong [video]
#35This looks a little dangerous to me, because it makes the pedestrian take their mind off the road. Just last week, a car accidentally drove up on the side walk part of the crosswalk and would have hit me had I not been paying attention and jumped out of the way. From what I understand this is not an uncommon event either. It's not like the lip of the curve is really any protection against the cars, a car can easily d…
It is an uncommon event. If it were common, we would be protecting every street corner with large bollards or a concrete wall.
How many cars pass through an intersection on any given day. How many end up on the curb?
Re: Streetpong [video]
#36Yeah, sure, it's cool, but take a step back and it's actually kind of sickening. All plays back to society needing constant stimulation of some kind. We can't just wait, or be bored, heaven forbid, anymore. Our phones aren't even enough now!
Re: Streetpong [video]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also shouldn't be checking Twitter or FB at a friggin crosswalk! You should be paying attention to traffic. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/17/cell-ph...
Usually I stand at a crosswalk and thus have little risk of walking off a bridge or into traffic. Also I see little point in always anticipating someone who drives into pedestrians. But if they do, I guess standing to the right of the traffic light gives me a slightly better chance of survival. And while it routinely happens that motorists will ignore pedestrians or cyclists at corners or that they drive over red lig…
If you're speaking of the traffic light pole providing protection, that might not be the case. I'm sure it's not the same everywhere, but for my area the poles are made to snap off at the base in case of a car hitting it. I would imagine the thought is that it saves the occupants of the car from a more severe impact, especially with the big poles.
Re: Streetpong [video]
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually I stand at a crosswalk and thus have little risk of walking off a bridge or into traffic. Also I see little point in always anticipating someone who drives into pedestrians. But if they do, I guess standing to the right of the traffic light gives me a slightly better chance of survival. And while it routinely happens that motorists will ignore pedestrians or cyclists at corners or that they drive over red lig…
You should be glad it didn't happen to you, but unfortunately it happens to other people all the time. http://news.ca.msn.com/local/montreal/pedestrian-killed-on-s... http://www.streetsblog.org/2013/11/11/three-killed-by-curb-j... http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19681198/car-drives-onto-sidewa... http://gothamist.com/2013/11/11/two_pedestrians_killed_after... http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20131226/san-bernardino-ma.…
I'm a bit hesitant to extrapolate a danger from anecdata. I might try finding actual data tonight. From experience so far I'd guess I'm much more likely to die when exercising my right of way as a cyclist.
Re: Streetpong [video]
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually I stand at a crosswalk and thus have little risk of walking off a bridge or into traffic. Also I see little point in always anticipating someone who drives into pedestrians. But if they do, I guess standing to the right of the traffic light gives me a slightly better chance of survival. And while it routinely happens that motorists will ignore pedestrians or cyclists at corners or that they drive over red lig…
If you're speaking of the traffic light pole providing protection, that might not be the case. I'm sure it's not the same everywhere, but for my area the poles are made to snap off at the base in case of a car hitting it. I would imagine the thought is that it saves the occupants of the car from a more severe impact, especially with the big poles.
I wasn't too serious about that, but from what I've seen they don't seem to snap easily; at least here. I'm also not sure whether it's better to have a traffic light pole falling on an intersection instead of just having a car stop at the pole (the former sounds like there could be more injuries involved).
Re: Streetpong [video]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like .. right at this moment? You're doing that right now? (Hint: Here's how you say that sentence properly: "Yes, because we actually stop at them!" The way you constructed it - you're doing it at the moment, definitively ..)
No, lis is right. Germany is stopping problems right now. It's valid because it's vague enough to refer to this year, this month, etc. Also, your sentence > Yes, because we actually stop at them! > stop at them! > at them! Muphry's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_Law
The sentence: "yes, because we are actually stopping at them" is in reference to the subject: "the traffic lights". The originator of the sentence was intending to convey the meaning that Germans - in general - stop at the traffic lights, whereas non-Germans, generally, do not.
Ask yourself this question: Are they stopping at the traffic lights right now in the present-progessive sense? Is the speaker talking about doing this 'right now'?
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/pres_pro.htm
.. or is it .. in the Simple Present form?
http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/simple_present_form...