[HN Gopher] Man ends 20-year Llandegley airport sign joke that c...
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Man ends 20-year Llandegley airport sign joke that cost PS25k
Author : ljf
Score : 179 points
Date : 2022-11-14 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| [deleted]
| blamazon wrote:
| There's an official sign in Boston that advises drivers they need
| only travel 3,365 more miles to reach Newport, Oregon:
|
| https://twitter.com/MassDOT/status/806867577112854529
| function_seven wrote:
| I remember seeing this one[0] when I was younger. There was a
| counterpart sign in North Carolina[1], but apparently it was
| stolen too often, and is no longer being replaced.
|
| [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/NorthCarolina/comments/bz6ath
|
| [1]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Wilmingt...
| robocat wrote:
| That leads to an article about the 420 mile marker sign
| getting stolen so often that they replaced it with a 419.99
| mile marker sign.
|
| https://www.denverpost.com/2014/01/10/colorado-hopes-a-
| mile-...
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Should say Newport Oregon, 3,365 miles. Proceed at own risk.
| hinkley wrote:
| Once in a while I'll see someone talking about Portland and get
| very confused as I slowly work out that they're talking about
| Portland, Maine.
|
| Why would people in <New England State> give a shit about
| what's going on in Oreg... oh.
|
| Probably the Boston sign is having a jab at Newport Rhode
| Island.
| cestith wrote:
| Oddly enough Portland, Oregon is named for Portland, Maine.
| If the coin toss had gone the other way it'd be named after
| Boston.
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Is this the longest highway in the US?
| dexterdog wrote:
| It is. The next two longest also start around there: US6 in
| Boston and I90 which starts at the tip of Cape Cod.
| Jiro wrote:
| This reads like a justification for trolling. "Nobody's hurt and
| it's all in good fun. My fun and my friends' fun, that is."
|
| Putting up a fake sign is like dropping a single piece of litter.
| It's not going to do much by itself, it's just a tiny bit of
| pollution which makes signs a tiny bit less useful to the general
| public.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think the cost solves this issue. It would be annoying if
| there were lots of fake street signs. Many people must get the
| idea to put up a random sign for something that doesn't exist,
| and more would upon seeing such signs, but very few people are
| willing to pay a thousand dollars a year for the joke.
| petercooper wrote:
| If you live in a country where there are arbitrary signs almost
| everywhere, like the US, I could see the argument. In the UK,
| however, this sign very clearly stands out as unusual and a
| joke. We don't tend to have large, independent signs and
| billboards on 60mph roads, especially not on the Welsh borders,
| so the sign's mere presence is curious enough and unlikely to
| detract from any other signs in the area.
| z9znz wrote:
| As long as Google doesn't mistakenly add the nonexistent
| airport to their maps, it is harmless to some and amusing to
| others.
| z9znz wrote:
| I do get your point related to litter, but there are times when
| - like with intentional misspellings or intentional wrong
| grammar - jokes can be made which are harmless to most but
| recognized as fun to a few.
| zaptrem wrote:
| I'm sure nobody will try to drive to an Airport to which they
| are unable to buy tickets.
| bena wrote:
| Yeah, I'm trying to come up with a scenario in which someone
| will be harmed by this.
|
| It's not like there's an airport and the sign is pointing to
| the wrong one. I don't arbitrarily visit airports.
|
| The worst thing I can think of is to tell someone that I'd be
| landing at the Llandegley airport and that I need a ride.
| Then they ride out to a field and I'm not there. But that's
| just plain old lying. I can say I'd be landing at Heathrow
| and the effect is the same. Even worse because Heathrow is an
| actual airport and they'd probably spend a bit looking for
| me. At least with Llandegley, the bit is up as soon as they
| pull into the field.
| tlb wrote:
| You can spend many hours at Heathrow waiting for someone to
| show up. And that's if they are arriving on a flight.
|
| FWIW, the UK is full of disused airports. Like if you
| search Google Maps for the nearest airport thinking "I'll
| have my jet pick me up there" it's probably now an
| industrial park built on top of a crumbling WWII airstrip.
| They built a lot of airstrips during the war, so the
| Luftwaffe couldn't bomb them all.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| A chunk of the M8 motorway just west of Glasgow runs
| along what used to be the runway of the old Renfrew
| Airport. It was only open for 12 years and sat derelict
| after closing in 1966 for about another ten years.
|
| A bit of a shame really because it really was a stunning
| building.
|
| https://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/renfrew-airport
| cjg wrote:
| Much like stonehenge.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Imagine having to justify a joke as anodyne as this.
| TheBlobIsReal wrote:
| FTA : _" Mr Whitehead added "as a journalist, whatever you do,
| someone, somewhere, is going to get upset about it".
|
| However, this particular joke has seemingly been popular among
| locals and tourists alike.
|
| "In 20 years, I haven't had a single complaint about Llandegley
| International," he said.
|
| "Loads of people love it, some people might not get it. But as
| far as I know, nobody is upset or angry about it. That's a
| first for me."_
|
| Guess, we found the one person upset...
| ilaksh wrote:
| Note that the article doesn't say that the town has put up the
| money to keep it going. If it is driving tourism, they might try
| to organize a bit and raise the funds.
| netsharc wrote:
| Feels like nowadays you can just put up a GoFundMe and the
| money will show up, providing the subject "went viral".
| _jal wrote:
| A couple years back a sign memorializing the Emperor Norton
| Memorial Bridge was placed at the onramp around 5th and Bryant in
| San Francisco. Unfortunately it was taken down fairly quickly.
|
| (The history is, some wag called the Bay Bridge the Willie L
| Brown Jr. Bridge, for some reason people started calling it that,
| and others who don't know any better perpetuate it. But real San
| Franciscans know it was and will always be Emperor Norton's
| bridge, and occasionally reminders of that fact go up.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco-Oakland_Bay_Brid...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
| mftb wrote:
| Sign Hacking in the LA Freeway Dystopia -
| https://thelandmag.com/richard-ankrom-guerrilla-public-servi...
| justinator wrote:
| > "I remember, after Boulder approved same sex marriage
| certificates (back in 1975 or earlier!) someone doctored a photo
| of the sign to say something along the lines of 'Welcome to
| Lesbian Homoville' (I think it was quoting testimony from a city
| council meeting.)"
|
| https://at.tumblr.com/thefuckingflatirons/boulder-welcome-to...
| drekipus wrote:
| Enough fun and games, time to pull down the joke and put the
| space to good use.
|
| Advertising.
| z9znz wrote:
| I fear your obvious sarcasm will still be missed... or
| overflown as one might say.
| dang wrote:
| As long as we're talking Welsh road sign stories, there's this
| classic:
|
| _E-mail error ends up on road sign_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=350186 - Oct 2008 (12
| comments)
| dcminter wrote:
| That's a gem.
|
| I have a copy of volume 2 of "Signs of the Times" from the
| 1970s, which is a catalogue of similarly amusing signs sent in
| by readers of The Times newspaper. My personal favourite is
| "Please do not throw sticks, stones, or this sign over the
| edge" from a cliff edge in South Africa :)
| Nekhrimah wrote:
| Reminds me a little of the "Welcome to Luton" prank from earlier
| this year by Max Fosh:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya_LluCl16k
| blamazon wrote:
| Some time after a period of my life where I was routinely
| traveling to and from Cleveland, I woke up from a nap on a
| plane to Milwaukee and saw this sign, it really got me:
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/welcome-to-cleveland-sig...
| samstave wrote:
| I'm not sure if its _that_ sign, but I have seen one of these
| before...
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| my favorite highway sign prank was when Harvey Mudd students
| changed a sign on the 210 which read: California
| Institute of Technology Pasadena City College Next
| Exit
|
| to: California Institute of Technology
| (Pasadena City College) Next Exit
| selimthegrim wrote:
| They could have fixed the one in the other direction that
| incorrectly said Cal Tech until recently.
|
| But more into easier is probably the guerrilla freeway sign
| heist adding an I-5 NORTH indication on the 110 north by Dodger
| Stadium before the tunnels
| Fatnino wrote:
| I remember seeing that one and thinking it looked a tiny bit
| wonkey but what can you expect from a last minute patch job.
|
| I thought it was official and it was very useful.
| r0m4n0 wrote:
| Reminds me of the legitimate freeway sign in Sacramento that says
| "Ocean City MD, 3073 Miles"
|
| I never knew the story behind it but apparently they have the
| same thing there with miles to Sacramento!
|
| https://www.capradio.org/articles/2016/05/06/two-coasts-two-...
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Just outside Baltimore, where I-70 begins its journey west,
| there's a sign listing mileage to Columbus, St Louis, Denver,
| and... Cove Fort - the unpopulated place in Utah that happens
| to mark the western terminus of I-70.
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cove_Fort
|
| > In 2004, the Federal Highway Administration was testing a new
| typeface, Clearview, designed to have improved readability at
| night with headlight illumination. One test sign was placed at
| Baltimore, Maryland - the eastern terminus of Interstate 70 -
| that listed Cove Fort as a control city with a distance of
| 2,200 mi (3,500 km). One employee stated with the number of
| queries the department received about Cove Fort, the test was a
| success. The sign became so popular that after the test was
| over, federal authorities made arrangements with Maryland
| authorities to keep the sign permanently installed. The sign
| prompted a series of stories about Cove Fort to be published in
| the Baltimore area. Since that time, a small effort has been
| made by people in both states to lobby the Utah Department of
| Transportation to reciprocate by placing a sign at Cove Fort
| listing the distance to Baltimore.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I think Clearview ended up not being optimal but they found
| this out in the middle or after the nationwide rollout?
| hinkley wrote:
| Sister City program?
| bombcar wrote:
| Opposite ends of a major highway.
| hinkley wrote:
| Oooh. Right.
| samstave wrote:
| Exactly. They are telling you just how far you can get on
| that particular strip.
| bombcar wrote:
| Next Exit: 1m
|
| Last Exit: 3,073m
|
| _bounds testing is important!_
| hinkley wrote:
| "First gas for 3073 miles" would be a funny road sign as
| well.
| samstave wrote:
| It would be funny if a particular [COMPANY/GAS STATION]
| put a sign up, whereby say, they are in baltimore, but
| bought a sign in SF advertising a super cheap gas price
| if you just come on by, and gas is FREE - we are
| conveniently located of HWY X, 3,015 miles east, then
| take a left"
|
| EDIT: I think I just reiterated what you just said.
| though you were more succinct.
| bombcar wrote:
| Somehow reminds me of those "free beer tomorrow" signs.
|
| You might be able to do something with a chain or
| restaurant that is on both ends, a little coin they can
| take from one to the other if they're driving all the
| way.
| hinkley wrote:
| There's a bar I walked passed at some point that had a
| sandwich board out front that said something like: we are
| known for friendly women, free beer, and false
| advertising.
| bombcar wrote:
| This kind of thing should be done at the beginning and end of
| every interstate, in my opinion.
|
| Lends a bit of flavor, though San Diego, CA may have more of
| them than most cities.
| kloch wrote:
| That's US route 50. There is indeed a similar 3000+ mile sign
| on the other end in Ocean City.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Route_50
| cestith wrote:
| Way cheaper than a social media giant.
| brandonscott wrote:
| how does it cost $1,500 a year to maintain it?
| Gare wrote:
| Looks like a rented billboard
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| This was a much more poignant article than I was expecting
|
| "The sign can come down but the airport is still there. The
| airport exists in the same way that songs exist. If you set fire
| to the scrap of paper on which Paul McCartney wrote Yesterday,
| that wouldn't destroy the song. E
| nyc111 wrote:
| Coincidentally, I was thinking about this example today. The
| paper in fact is not the song. It becomes a song when it is
| sang. When it is given voice. In fact it is hard to say what
| the song is. You can play it with different instruments. You
| can play it in its recorded form on various media. All these
| will sound different. I was thinking "reality" is like this
| too. So I don't think the sign can make the airport.
| TylerE wrote:
| This is what a meme really is.
| markburns wrote:
| The vast majority of our waking hours are spent pondering
| things that are not in the least bit real like this. Just
| memes that only humans are aware of and believe in.
|
| This airport is as real as a song, as santa, as a country,
| a law, the value of money, words.
|
| In fact, an overwhelming majority of things that we
| generally perceive to be real are only things that exist in
| the shared consciousness of human beings. The only
| difference between santa and a law is just how strongly
| people believe in and how many people willingly support the
| latter.
|
| But santa and laws are of the exact same category of made
| up ideas that we choose to believe in and that influence
| our group behaviour.
|
| Some things do exist, like the combination of materials
| that make up buildings that we inhabit.
|
| But their meaning and purpose and ownership and the reasons
| we enter them and the vast majority of what buildings mean
| to us aren't in the least bit real.
|
| I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to find out that
| ant and bee colonies also share their own memes that help
| structure their societies.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| And even there was a "real" airport - you'd face
| considerations like "Theseus ship"
| 7952 wrote:
| And much of what we percieve as real isn't. Your senses
| are used as an input to a model rather than being
| available in a raw form and we percieve the model. For
| example your brain takes a stream of data from your eyes
| as they flick in different directions and different focus
| levels. But what you percieve is a fully rendered model
| with no edges and an understanding of depth. But it is
| always an abstraction. The yellow blob at the edge of
| your field of view may be a lion rather than a wheat
| field. And the car 100m away could be the size of a
| mountain.
| WalterBright wrote:
| In the 1980s when Reagan sent wheat to the USSR, a sign appeared
| in Kansas proclaiming "Kansas: Breadbasket of the Soviet Union".
| mongol wrote:
| It is the terminals that make the joke right? Airports comes in
| all sizes.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| The UK doesn't do that much domestic flying, only cities tend
| to have airports.
| [deleted]
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