that's hysterical! (and idiotic)

I laughed out loud, and then called everyone over to look at the photo. That's awesome.

it would be great except people who don't see the head wound coming often miss signs.

add a sign below the sign that says "didn't see the sign?"

ya know, as they stare down in pain
with a blood trough for the resultant head injury and maybe a wet nap

That's hilarious.

That so needs to be boingboinged.

Dangerous Sign Is Not Unix? That doesn't work. Warning Sign Is Generally Not Warranted? Crap, I give up.

another one

I don't get it. There's a billion of those things here in Japan. It isn't a sign whose express purpose is to warn you about itself. It's a piece of plastic whose express purpose is to keep yourself from getting hit by a pillar or the bottom of the next floor. Getting hit by plastic when craning your head over the escalator edge is greatly preferable to getting hit by a beam, and infinitely preferable to getting your head pinched between the elevator rail and the bottom of the next floor (on an indoor elevator).

But it still sucks to get hit by plastic, so there's a warning on the sign. Basically, "If you're paying attention: Don't get hit by this sign!! And if you aren't paying attention, you're going to get hit by this sign, so that you don't get hit by a marble pillar!"

Nice try, bugbread, but no banana. We have those bits of plastic all over the place here, too, but I don't see any sign of that one protecting a diminishing gap in any way, which is what they are usually for. Unless it is out of shot, of course, but the geometry of the building doesn't suggest that. The most likely thing is that there is some other object just out of shot that intrudes into potential headspace. Or it's a joke. Either way, why do we care? I mean, I get that we do, I just don't know why.

Perhaps the little red halo is not meant to indicate that you will physically bump into the sign but rather, that thinking about the purpose of the sign will make your head hurt?

In other words, the sign is making a reference to its own puzzling sense of self-reference.

UPDATE: I was totally drunk when I did it, but thought this was too cool to not be boingboinged. Sure enough, I sent in a suggest-a-link and they ran it today. So, congrats to Lush- it's now really out there. But they didn't credit that it was originally from Metachat, so I'm writing them to have that added.

still the mooniest bird ever!
to the moon, allus!

I don't see any sign of that one protecting a diminishing gap in any way

You don't see a big stone pillar right in the middle of the photo? Is my screen calibrated wrong?

honestly, my first thought seeing it was that it was an evident warning you see when approaching the escalator but i just went with the joke as i just gave it a glance, didn't have time to read the whole thing at the time--

still, proud of the flights of our bird, though.
(and i'm fine with us not being directly boinged, as the casual peruser doesn't seem to feel the need to get us a la ignorant metaremarks)

The thing about that sign is that I have had to point it out to people, as it wasn't even entirely noticable. I posted it for my friends for a laugh, and it turned out a lot of them weren't even aware of its existence even though it's in one of the most popular shopping centers in Metro Manila. And now that it's been MeCha'd and boingboinged, the entire world is aware of it. Eeep!

The sign hangs to the right side of the escalator leading up to the next floor. What isn't apparent is the depth of the objects: the metal rafter right there is about a foot away and the stone pillar it's attached to is at least an arm's length away. There is no overhang in the headzone above the escalator. The "diminishing gap" is out of the way of anyone standing in the escalator, and there's no real danger unless lean over to the right, torso bent, all the way.

bugbread, though there must be a million signs like these in a place full of cute and bizarre things like Japan, this is the first of its kind I've seen in Manila. It isn't immediately obvious that it warns of the diminishing gap, as the only objects visible in the sign are

1) an escalator
2) a stick figure
3) a hanging sign
4) red rays which vaguely signify either impact or awareness

"Mind the sign!" it seemed to say, and because neither the gap nor leaning over ever occurred to me, the first thought that came up was "What does this mean? It's a sign about the sign?!"

I thought the apparent self-referentialness of it all was funny.

I am sad to report though that the sign was taken down a few days after I posted about it, replaced by a similarly-shaped transparent plastic board - a sign-shaped sign with nothing on it. Make of it what you will!

The sign hangs to the right side of the escalator leading up to the next floor. What isn't apparent is the depth of the objects: the metal rafter right there is about a foot away and the stone pillar it's attached to is at least an arm's length away.

Ok, that explains quite a bit. In that case, I can totally groove on the silliness of it. My experience with signs in places that make sense caused me to misinterpret the depth of field.

That bottom quote box was an accident. Sorry.