Walking Men (bookofjoe2.blogspot.com)
69 points by surprisetalk a day ago
qsort 6 hours ago
No Ampelmann???
Tomte 4 hours ago
Even better: Emden, Germany.
https://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/otto-waalkes-enthuellt-ot...
https://www.wn.de/welt/kultur/hupf-otto-hupf-emden-ehrt-komi...
johannes1234321 2 hours ago
Also Elvis is still alive https://web.archive.org/web/20181216174500/https://www.br.de...
Or Karl Marx https://web.archive.org/web/20180506094945/https://www.swr.d...
And there are a bunch more in Germany.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelm%C3%A4nnchen#Darstellung...
croisillon 3 hours ago
and the Ampel-couples in Vienna https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelp%C3%A4rchen
hnlmorg 5 hours ago
That’s not current so likely not part of the scope of the authors project. But it was still an interesting read so thanks for sharing.
mxschll 5 hours ago
It is current. Source: I live in Berlin.
hnlmorg 5 hours ago
SwellJoe 3 hours ago
Istanbul is doing a ska dance. Also looks like he's wearing a porkpie hat. Probably listening to The Specials.
koolba an hour ago
Chicago and Boston look like tired old men with bad posture.
Contrast that with the virile Beijing and Madrid.
I’m not sure why Saragossa is wearing a dress.
And Warsaw looks like he’s ready to fight somebody.
stephbook 2 hours ago
What about Bompel against smombies?
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodenampel
(short for Bodenampel, or "ground traffic light" to help "smartphone zombies" cross the street)
I just wish they also had gotten cool designs.
foresterre 5 hours ago
Fun!
I always like to see one off designs, like this one in The Netherlands of Miffy (1) or Det in Mainz in Germany (2), or in Akureyri (3).
(1) https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/miffy-traffic-light-utre...
(2) https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mainzelmaenchen-ampel-tr...
(3) https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/akureyri-heart-shaped-tr...
bojan 5 hours ago
Not exactly a man, but Sofie[0] from Amersfoort is also interesting.
alexpotato 4 hours ago
If people are into this kind of thing, I highly suggest reading about the DOT pictograms:
kmoser 2 hours ago
Interestingly, Saragossa seems to be wearing a dress (jodhpurs? breeches?).
WalterGR 4 hours ago
Direct link to the project: https://walking-men.com/
Gualdrapo 5 hours ago
It's kinda odd (to me, at least) to see an active blogpost in 2026. Everyone here seems to miss pre-html5 and css3 web but nobody seems to miss this era of the web, circa 2007-2010
hnlmorg 5 hours ago
For good reason. 90s web was full of independence and experimentation. Nobody really knew what was good or bad design and the Internet hadn’t been commercialised. So people just did stuff for fun.
The era you described was when corporate entities took ownership of the web with walled gardens like social networks and blogging platforms. Microsoft were stifling innovation in browser tech, and w3c were asleep at the wheel. So much of the web was built around Flash and other proprietary formats. It was basically the dark ages for web development.
Much as I dismiss many claims made about Apple inventing the smart phone, the iPhone was definitely a pivotal player in changing web technology to become what it is today (for better or for worse).
PorciiVorbesc 2 hours ago
> It was basically the dark ages for web development.
Speak for yourself buddy, I had a blast both browsing and developing for the Flash era of the web back in those days and I was barely into highschool. Macromedia tooling made web dev so approachable to kids and youngsters, for games, animations.
I get you hate Flash and MS, but the web was still way more of a wild west back then than today. Nobody from the government or ISP was monitoring my online activity to check for IP infringement or CSAM, there was no ID age verification, Youtube and other websites allowed uploads of anything, there were no manufacturer closed walled gardens preventing me what I can install on my own hardware, you weren't getting your gaming account banned for saying a $GAMER_WORD in a death match, less AD-tracking everywhere, etc. etc.
Now there's more open standards for web-dev on paper, but instead of Flash and IE, we have the monopoly walled garden of Google, Apple, Meta, etc. over the web, plus the governmental eye of Sauron over our activity and identity, which is way more cancerous than what we had >20 years ago.
People thinking we're overall better off now than in the Flash era must be on some really good weed. If using Flash was the only downside, I'd gladly go back to the web of the early 2000s. Frost my tips and plug me into the Matrix.
hnlmorg an hour ago
layer8 4 hours ago
What’s an active blogpost? Do you mean an active blog?
qsort 5 hours ago
I suspect tech has little to do with it: we all mostly miss being 20 years younger and not having gray hair.
kridsdale1 5 hours ago
This is exactly what I like to see on HN while I’m having my coffee.