zipper sign

[ron_newman]

The Middlesex Federal Savings Bank has installed an electric 'zipper' sign wrapping around the corner of Highland and College Avenue. I don't know what they plan to do with it.

Right now it's mostly dark, but a few days ago I saw a test pattern displayed on it.

Comments

[ah42.livejournal.com]

Zipper sign? I'm not familiar with this terminology.

[ron_newman]

I think that's the right name for this. A sign with letters that move from left to right, like the news ticker in Times Square.

[ah42.livejournal.com]

Ah. I had always thought the term was 'marquee,' partially due to the <marquee> HTML tag. But it appears that the term 'marquee' refers to the permanent canopy over an entrance, and not the signage upon it.

[ron_newman]

I didn't even know there was such an HTML tag.
The sign over the Somerville Theatre entrance is a marquee.

[ah42.livejournal.com]

This line is in the <marquee> tag

Only some browsers support it, mostly older netscape browsers, and modern mozilla-based browsers. It scrolls text horizontally.

[ron_newman]

That works in Safari, too. But I'm glad people don't usually use it here at LJ.

geek trivia

[mattdm [typekey.com] (from livejournal.com)]

Interesting that Firefox now supports this. I don't think the old Netscape Navigator ever did -- this one was invented by Microsoft. I think it's their first extension to standard HTML, actually -- a one-upmanship over Netscape's blink tag. Anyway, it's still not part of the HTML standard and even Microsoft calls it "deprecated".

[joylewis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely shuddered when I first read "electric zipper".

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I want an electric zipper so I can connect it up to 'the clapper'

[mattlistener.livejournal.com]

"ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE"

(favorite quote from a zipper-sign installation at the MFA.)

[ron_newman]

that's from Jenny Holzer, of course.

Didn't the Winter Hill Bank in Davis Square let her use their zipper sign for a few weeks, many years ago?

new thread -June 24, 2006

[cleanup-davissq.livejournal.com]

new thread -June 24, 2006