Tesco security considered as a Portal level

I was walking past my local Tesco's store yesterday when I noticed this peculiar security sign; my wife said, "Huh, their security must be supplied by the same people who design Portal levels."

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

I would have went with the oil slick myself.
IlluminatedOne

This sign is amazing. I’d have loved to have designed it – what a job; “This week, Jimmy, you will design a sign warning people that if they break in they will go BLIND due to a mysteriously confusing symmetrical fog” (That’s sort of what’s implied by ‘impossible to see’).
Trent Hawkins

Old place I worked at had this. Smells sugary and makes it impossible to see for a long time even with windows and doors open and it really messes up any print you have lying around.
Kosmoid

The fog is a lie.
Glippiglop

Video of how this works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-NWDTDtePI

I guess the injuries would be incurred by running into things on your way out of the store. I wonder how hard it would be for the staff to set one of these off accidentally…
bardfinn

fog generating security equipment – because people never, ever count the number of steps from the front door to the manager’s office.
Jenonymous

And the bakery section doesnâ€™t really have any cake either.
Narmitaj

Hmm. The sign text makes it appear that it is the fog that somehow generates security equipment, not the other way round. Does no-one hy-phenate any more? Does “Fog-generating Security Equipment” look so old-fashioned?

Meanwhile the sign image looks to be of a man attacked by a lot of boomerangs.
- MrWeeble
  
  “Does no-one hy-phenate any more?”
  No. Also noÃ¶ne uses diaereses either, which is a shame.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Naw, it’s your standard universal “Hoof-Hearted” image.
- Anonymous
  
  > The sign text makes it appear that it is the fog that somehow generates security equipment, not the other way round.
  I think that would be “Fog: Generating Security Equipment”, “Fog – Generating Security Equipment” (depending on your interpretation of style)
Anonymous

Who farted???
duncan

This is an old security idea from the 70s. I love it.
MelSkunk

Okay, hands up who’d wanna break in just to see the fog go off..
- Effsix
  
  *Raises hand*
  
  I’d like to be being chased by security guards near this device then say “Now you see me…” then activate the fog by kicking it then go “now you don’t, suckas! Har har har!”
Anonymous

“Dear, as you return home from office, would you stop at the supermarket to buy some [garbled] lemons? You know… for science.”
jimkirk

I’m thinking sonar…
- Michael Smith
  
  You need the blind guy from Sneakers.
Lirodon

I’ll start getting everything else working while you perform this first simple test. Which involves blinding fog and how test subjects react when locked in a room with blinding fog.
semiotix

This is actually just one component of a larger security scheme.

At the same time that the fog is dispensed, the building lights flash on and off to attract the attention of nearby security patrols. Grids of lasers sweep through the area, to pinpoint where in the fog the perpetrators are.

As soon as the laser motion-sensors have located the intruders, they are sprayed with a mist containing a debilitating chemical, 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine.

Meanwhile, incredibly loud, pulsating music plays from hidden speakers to disorient the intruders and prevent them from communicating. A recorded voice instructs the intruders to put their hands in the air (to show law enforcement that they are unarmed) and then repeats the command: get down, get down, get down.
- Ronald Pottol
  
  Best comment ever. I had to google the debilitating chemical to get it.
- Tynam
  
  LOL (indicating actual laughter, not just internet convention). Semiotix wins the thread.
fnc

“Those breaking and entering will have numerous large sets of buttocks pointed at them.”
- bibulb
  
  Somewhere, and I wish I had the address saved from several computers ago, there was a site devoted to deciphering instruction manual and warning sign iconography. Unlike many others, this one was pretty damn funny.
  
  “Do not attempt to lift this package unless you and your compatriot are both wearing culottes.”
- querent
  
  lolled.
Helljin

So that’s where the smoke monster comes from.
Alvis

Um, how is this any different than a spring gun?

A cluttered store with intentionally-induced zero visibility is an injury waiting to happen as much as a shotgun hooked to a tripwire. Disclaimers shouldn’t let the injuring party off the hook. Human welfare being more important than property, and all that.
- Anonymous
  
  The disclaimer is a deterrent, not a real legal protection.
- Anonymous
  
  *Human welfare being more important than property, and all that.*
  
  psych!
Anonymous

“This machine helps us catch shoplifters by instantly concealing them in a shroud of mist.”