I see that widening of the road is in progress on my way to work. They demolish buildings, level the ground and suddenly there are the lamp posts - smack in the middle of the street. It just does seem incongruous in this modern times to think that someone has to actually uproot them to move them to their rightful place by the side of the street.
The shining streetwalkers (Yay!) are lamp posts on a segway base, tethered and powered by overhead insulated cable, with electromagnetic extensors on both cable and post. They would be in one long string, somewhat longer than the stretch of road undergoing renovation and would connect to the power network at one end. Each post will have sufficient intelligence to look after itself and be fitted with a mercury vapour lamp at the top.
The old lamp posts will be retired, buildings demolished and the streetwalkers would be brought in to light up the street. There they would stand, leaning over to keep balance, pulling up one, perhaps, which was going to topple over, by the power cable, jumping clean over a car which threatened to knock it for a six - etc.
At the end of the job, permanent posts would be put in and they would march in single file over to the next stretch.
Was originaly "Shining streetwalkers" . Change in title suggested by Sappho.-- neelandan, Feb 02 2002 Flocking Road Cones http://www.halfbake...king_20Road_20ConesNearest gadget in the halfbakery [neelandan, Feb 02 2002, last modified Oct 05 2004] "the lamp posts and buildings would be demolished"...
thumbwax jumped in with the result that the idea was modified as it stands now.-- neelandan, Feb 02 2002 it is surprising how something deemed commonplace and ugly now, can at sometime in the future take on a beauty (shame the beauty is often linked to a value though).-- po, Feb 02 2002 ah, well - those I-beams can be put to good use somewhere somehow. Recycling is good. Croissant (Yay!)-- thumbwax, Feb 02 2002 To each his own, UB.-- neelandan, Feb 02 2002 I also expected some sort of ladies-of-the-night with - I don't know - red lightbulb hats or something. I like the 'chain gang' street lamps image, though. Croissant.-- Guy Fox, Feb 02 2002 a segway base- rather than walking what about tall robot things striding around with long thin legs and a lamp head-- technobadger, Feb 02 2002 I'll blow out your candle, if you keep deleting me though.-- po, Feb 03 2002 I looked closer at the doomed lamp posts and found only a few iron rail ones. The rest were concrete, in an unimaginative rectangular cross-section. There is another stretch of already wide road which has concrete posts like fluted columns.
The one ornamental lamp post already has an enclosure around it and has been erected in memory of somebody.-- neelandan, Feb 04 2002 Good - at least some things are sacred.-- thumbwax, Feb 04 2002 May be we should keep this ornamental lamp post sacred, too.-- goff, Feb 04 2002 technobadger - robots would need at least three legs on the ground to maintain balance. Space is at a premium, on the initial stages at least, and the widely sprawled legs would seriously limit the activities of either the construction crew or the traffic.
A segway base would mean that the walker is stable, and the connection by the power line means that it can, in an emergency, be pulled up by shortening itself and the two sections of cables to its neighbours.-- neelandan, Feb 05 2002 I saw a house on wheels once, when I went on holiday in the USA. Not a mobile home, not even one of those Winnebago monstrosities; it was a real house, on the back of a truck, going somewhere. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I hope it stayed up ok, wherever it was thatit went - it didn't look like it had any such thing as foundations.p.s. flocking sentient street lights - I like!-- sappho, Feb 06 2002 //p.s. flocking sentient street lights - I like!//
I like it, too. Title changed. If anyone wants the night ladies back, just holler (and give reasons).-- neelandan, Feb 08 2002 How about a moving LIGHTHOUSE? The 4800 ton lighthouse on Cape Hattaras was moved south by 3000 feet a few years ago because the beach on which it was standing was endangered by erosion. How often do you see a 200+ foot tall structure transported upright?-- supercat, Feb 08 2002 "holler."
Flocking behaviour is completely inappropriate for street lights. They would all end up at one end of the street gathered around a house whose occupants who had left the porch light on.-- st3f, Feb 08 2002 Streetlights should be more nomadic in personality, and fiercely territorial so that they hiss and spit at each other if one approaches within about 15 metres of another. Fishbone, partly for being pitifully derivative.-- hippo, Feb 08 2002 Point taken, Saint. They should have the opposite of flocking behaviour, the correct word however escapes me.
I was always unhappy with the association with the ladies of the night and grabbed the option sappho offered without thinking much about it.-- neelandan, Feb 08 2002 Ok, not flocking... 'territorial' is good, but I can't see that these SSLs would be *aggressively* territorial; perhaps zonal, each covers his patch which borders another - so they could flock if there was a high concentration fo traffic or pedestrians in an area, requiring more light; and they could widen their zones if there was no need for such density of lighting. I suppose all the zones would cluster around barns where the lights could go to sleep in the daytime? "Variable-Zoned Sentient Street Lights"? (but really there is little need for such a specific title. Sentient is enough.) (And, thank you for taking up my suggestion, neelandan!)-- sappho, Feb 08 2002 random, halfbakery